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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22362037">A Breath Of Fresh Air</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashcatontherooftop/pseuds/trashcatontherooftop'>trashcatontherooftop</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Miraculous Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(it's only chapter 3... so far), Background DJWifi, Balcony Scene, Blackmail, Bullying, Chat Blanc - Freeform, Chat Noir x Food, Cheek Kisses, Cuddles, Cuddling &amp; Snuggling, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Fluff, Forehead Kisses, Friendly Rivalry, Gen, Head Massage, Head pats, Hurt/Comfort, Ice Cream, Introspection, Literal Sleeping Together, Luka mention, Lullabies, Marichat, Marinette x Chat Noir, Massage, More plot, Mutual Pining, Nightmares, PTSD, Panic Attack, Plagg Ships It (Miraculous Ladybug), Sewing, Sharing a Bed, Shenanigans, Shoulder rubs, Slow Burn, Suddenly there's ANGST, Swimming Pools, Tickling, accidental neck kiss, awkward dorks, is this a date?, kagami mention, minor Song Of The Sea spoilers in chapter 7, miracuclass shenanigans, movies - Freeform, now with Adrienette!, silliness, soft, still platonic... or is it?, teaching/learning, uh oh, video games - Freeform, wait what</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 10:15:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>40,364</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22362037</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashcatontherooftop/pseuds/trashcatontherooftop</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The miracuclass' attempts to stay cool in a heatwave lead to Adrien and Marinette both being grounded for the rest of the summer. With nothing but her thoughts for company on a hot summer night, Marinette is grateful when a leather-clad kitty shows up to take her mind off things.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>323</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>737</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is the one-shot drabble that turned into a slice-of-life-ish chapter series. Chapters are in chronological order and made to feel like a story, but can also be read like a bunch of one-shots.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was summer, and like every summer in Paris, the heat was suffocating. Ice cream on the banks of the Seine had been fun for a while, but when temperatures climbed into the forties, the gang had had to find other solutions. Kim had suggested swimming, but one crazy afternoon spent losing each other in the public swimming pool with seemingly the entire population of Paris in it had put them off so badly that Marinette was surprised nobody had gotten akumatized that day.</p><p>Kagami had suggested the ice rink. Philippe, the owner, had greeted them with open arms, but so had a horde of Adrien’s fans who had been <span>coming</span> ever since he’d published that one selfie on social media, hoping to bump into him. The gang had been forced to flee.</p><p>The bakery was air conditioned, so Marinette had suggested they all go there, but Alya shot that idea down before her parents had the chance to: it was too small for everyone to fit in at once, and they only had air conditioning in the shop, not in the flat upstairs.</p><p>Adrien, who felt somewhat responsible for their last misadventure, had then attempted to sneak them all into <span>his</span> air conditioned bedroom, with the help (or at least, the complicit inaction) of his bodyguard. This had worked perfectly for an entire afternoon, before Nathalie showed up to ask if he’d heard from his Mandarin teacher, who hadn’t turned up and wasn’t answering his phone. She’d found Adrien sprawled out with eight of his classmates, all dozing blissfully under the air conditioning, with a ninth <em>in the shower in his swimming trunks </em>where the water had been running for goodness knew how long. They had all received a stern telling off from Gabriel Agreste and were forbidden from entering the house for the remainder of the summer. Adrien, of course, was grounded.</p><p>After that, they had stopped hanging out all together. It didn’t feel right when one of them couldn’t be there. Sometimes small groups of them would find each other and call the others, often on the Liberty during Kitty Section rehearsals, but finding a mooring spot in the shade was impossible most days, and the air below deck was stifling. At one point Alya’s mother let Alya, Nino and Marinette stay in the hotel kitchen during off hours as long as they did the dishes (they were careful to avoid being spotted by Chloe, who would have had a field day), but this deal ended after only two days when Marinette dropped a huge pile of plates, smashing all of them.</p><p>So here she was at the end of July, working in the bakery to make up for the money she now owed her parents. She felt bad about the plates and her parents having to pay – they hadn’t been cheap – and she suspected they’d put her there so she’d stay put and stop getting into trouble trying to cool off. It worked well enough: the alternative would have been sitting in the stuffy heat upstairs where, some nights, she begged Tikki to let her transform into aquabug and jump into the Seine. She wasn’t <em>entirely</em> serious, of course; she still wasn’t sure of her potion-making abilities without Master Fu there to help her, and was trying not to think of the day she ran out of magic macaroons. But the thought was so tempting.</p><p>Thankfully, Hawkmoth and Mayura seemed to have gone on vacation, because nobody had been akumatized in just over a month – not since the Miracle Queen debacle. Ladybug and Chat Noir still patrolled a few times a week just in case, but when she’d suggested meeting more often, Chat Noir had cocked his head in honest bafflement and asked “what for?”, like he hadn’t been begging her to go on a date with him since they’d met last year.</p><p>Not that she wanted to <em>date</em> Chat Noir. Of course not. But she did miss him on the nights when they weren’t out together. He’d been a little different lately; much less flirty and touchy-feely, but the puns were still there, and so was the kindness. She’d been trying to get over Adrien and Kagami, and Master Fu vanishing from her life, and trying not to think about the huge responsibility of being the Guardian, and what to do about Luka (how <em>did </em>she feel about Luka?), but it was A Lot, and between all those things and the heat, she often found herself on her rooftop balcony in the wee hours of the morning, gazing out at the yellow city lights while Tikki slept, trying to clear her head.</p><p>It was on one of these nights that he first appeared, materializing out of the darkness behind her chimney and dropping lithely onto the iron railing with a familiar “Hey, Purr-incess”. It had been so long since she’d seen him as Marinette that she felt her cheeks flush a little at the greeting, but then she frowned. Why would he turn Ladybug down if he was going to be out in costume anyway?</p><p>“Isn’t it your night off?” she asked, coming to lean on the railing next to him.</p><p>“You know my schedule,” he grinned. “I’m flattered.”</p><p>She rolled her eyes to hide her sudden panic, and fell back on a much used lie. “My best friend writes the Ladyblog. We know <em>everything</em>.”</p><p>Chat gasped in mock horror, swaying perilously as he leaned back. “<em>You know who I am?”</em></p><p>“Well, everything except that,” Marinette chuckled, relieved he hadn't chosen to probe further.</p><p>Chat Noir laughed as well, and she found herself relaxing. It felt nice just to be with him. A welcome distraction from the murk that rose from the bottom of her mind every time she was alone. He settled on the railing next to her, quite close, and kicked his legs idly into the empty air, looking like a small child sitting on a chair too big for him.</p><p>“So, what <em>are</em> you doing out?” She asked again. “In this heat, in black… what is that stuff anyway?” she picked at the fabric of his sleeve.</p><p>Chat stretched out an arm, flexing clawed fingers in the leathery-spandexy fabric of his gloves. It didn’t creak the way leather would. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never even wondered. Some kind of magic material, I guess. Trust you to ask <em>that,” </em><span>He chuckled and held out a hand, palm up, for her to examine. She ran her fingers over the material, noting the way it hardened seamlessly at his claws. Of course, Marinette was more familiar with Chat Noir's costume than he suspected, but she'd never had the chance to look at it with her designer's eyes, so to speak. She'd always thought it would be similar to her Ladybug costume, but now she noticed that the texture of it wasn't quite the same. Even the light bounced off it differently.</span></p><p>“I wonder what I could make with magical fabric?” she murmured.</p><p>“A <em>claw</em>-some costume for yourself?” he raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“One with many, many pockets,” she agreed, choosing to ignore the pun. “Each pocket would lead to a different place, like my bedroom or my locker, so if I forgot anything, I could just pick it out of my pocket!” She beamed at him, pleased with her idea.</p><p>Chat Noir's eyes widened. “Ohh! And you could make a really big one somewhere so if you got in trouble and needed to escape, you could go through it yourself!”</p><p>Marinette's mouth twisted. “Hmm, but then I'd have to leave my costume behind, and somebody might steal it.”</p><p>“True,” he admitted. “You could help other people escape, though.” He grinned suddenly. “Like me!”</p><p>Marinette snickered. “Why would you want to escape trouble? Don't you usually go looking for it?”</p><p>“Ex<em>cuse</em> me, that's my <em>job</em>,” he retorted. “Besides, wouldn't you love to have a pretty kitty like me to carry around in your <em>paw</em>-ket?”</p><p>He leered at her, grinning, and it took everything she had to avoid pushing him back by the nose.</p><p>She booped him instead. “Not one your size,” she retorted. “Besides, I'm more of a hamster gal.”</p><p>“Aww.” He let out another chuckle, turning back to face the city. She giggled and nudged him gently. Unlike that first night when he'd come to talk to her – the night she'd realized his feelings for her were serious – the moon was not out tonight, and the sky was an orange shade of black. The only visible stars were the city lights shining clear through the night.</p><p>“Can I ask you something?” he said quietly, after a while.</p><p>“Sure.”</p><p>He hesitated. “Is it cheating if you’re dating someone, but you’re still in love with someone else?”</p><p>Marinette suddenly felt her cheeks flush with shame. “W-what? Nooo! What makes you – I mean, why do you ask?” As the initial panic died down, something else occurred to her. “Wait, do you have a girlfriend now?” <em>And he didn’t tell Ladybug?</em></p><p>“I… guess?” Chat said, cocking his head with a quizzical frown. “I don’t call her that, but maybe she is?”</p><p>Marinette’s heart twinged. <em>Stupid, </em>she thought. <em>You have no right to be jealous after turning him down all those times. You don’t even like him that way! You’re just lonely, so stop it!</em></p><p>“Sooo, you think it’s okay to date someone if you have feelings for someone else?” Chat Noir asked again, apprehensively.</p><p>Marinette bit her lip, trying to imagine what she would say if she weren’t in this exact situation. “I don’t think it’s cheating, but I don’t think it’s okay either,” she said eventually. “You might end up making your girlfriend sad.” And then guilt submerged her as she thought about how she might be making Luka sad.</p><p>Chat Noir’s shoulders slumped a little. “She did say something like that once,” he said.</p><p>Marinette raised an eyebrow. “So this girl <em>knows</em> you’re still in love with somebody else?”</p><p>“I think so,” he said sadly. “I’ve been trying to distance myself from that person, though.”</p><p>Marinette’s heart did a tiny skip. “You mean, Ladybug?”</p><p>He nodded glumly, and she tried to figure out how to word her next question.</p><p>“Does she know?” She asked eventually. “Ladybug, I mean. Does she know you have a girlfriend?”</p><p>He sighed. “No. I can’t seem to tell her. I guess that’s why it feels like cheating. If I tell her I have a girlfriend, she’ll think I’ve given up on her. It'd make it <em>real</em>.”</p><p>“And… you haven’t?”</p><p>“Well, I’m <em>trying</em>,” he said, sounding exasperated. “It’s not easy, y’know.”</p><p>A disquieting mixture of feelings stirred in her stomach. They were feelings she'd been trying to ignore, because she didn't know what they meant. Marinette put her chin on her hands. “I know,” she said quietly.</p><p>She felt more than saw him glance sidelong at her. “You too, huh?”</p><p>“Yup.”</p><p>Chat Noir sighed, then laughed. “I feel like we’ve had this conversation before. Still the same guy? Or... gal?” he grinned.</p><p>She gave him a half-hearted smirk. “Do you have another candlelit rooftop set up somewhere to cheer me up?”</p><p>He snorted. “I’m no longer that hopeful,” he said, and even though he said it with a lopsided grin, the bitterness in his voice made her almost want to cry.</p><p>He must have seen it in her face because he reached out and brushed her cheek with the back of one claw. “Hey, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to ruin your mood.”</p><p>“N-no, you didn’t! It’s fine,” she said, waving her hands in front of her before leaning back on the railing. “I wasn’t exactly in a good mood to begin with.”</p><p>He gave her a sympathetic smile. “Wanna talk about it?” he asked.</p><p><em>Do I want to talk about how I’m dating Luka in order to forget Adrien, only it’s not working at all, so now I just feel guilty all the time as well as sad? And overwealmed, because I have this double life that I can't cope with? Why not just admit I'm Ladybug? After this conversation, he’d run a mile, </em>She thought. <em>Nope. Let's not.</em></p><p>“I’d rather not even think about it,” she said, which was true. “It’s harder not to think about at night, that’s all.” She swallowed, and added quietly “Thanks for coming here tonight.”</p><p>He chuckled. “You’re welcome, Princess.”</p><p>The silence that fell between them was like a soft blanket. Time passed without either of them noticing, each lost in their own world of thoughts, but comforted by the others' presence. Marinette only realized she'd let her head drop sideways onto his arm when she felt it shift slowly, winding around her shoulders and pulling her closer so she could lean against his side instead. Chat Noir's suit was surprisingly cool, and she before she knew what she was doing, she caught herself pressing her hot cheek against it.</p><p>“S-sorry,” she mumbled, stopping.</p><p>“S'okay,” he replied, stroking her bare shoulder with his thumb. There was no trace of teasing or embarassment in his voice, and she relaxed gratefully against him, letting her thoughts wander again.</p><p>Marinette didn’t know how she’d fallen asleep while standing up, but she woke up alone with the first rays of pink sunlight on her face. She was curled up in her deck chair, covered in one of her own blankets, which he must have plucked from her bed after carrying her to the chair. A fond smile pulled at her lips at the thought of him tucking her in, and she wished she know when she'd see him again as Marinette, so she could thank him. Maybe she could thank him as Ladybug by bringing macarons to patrol? Yes, she decided. That was a great idea.</p><p>Satisfied with this compromise, Marinette pulled the blanket up around her shoulders, shivering a little in the deliciously cool breeze, and sat up to watch the sun rise.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Pets allowed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So apparently we're doing this</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As it turned out, Marinette didn't have to wait for their next patrol to thank Chat Noir.</p><p>“Hey Princess! You feeling better?” He'd called out the night after.</p><p>It was just past nine o'clock and the sun was still setting. Marinette spun from where she was watering her slowly dying basil plant, splashed water everywhere including on herself, and cursed. He laughed at her, hopping across the rooftops until he landed on the balcony in front of her. She scowled back, keeping her eyes away from where Tikki had just disappeared down the skylight.</p><p>“You did that on purpose,” she accused.</p><p>“I honestly didn't, but I would do it again.” He grinned, unrepentant.</p><p>“What do you want?”</p><p>Supernaturally green eyes glowed with mischief, then softened. “I wanted to see if you were feeling better,” he said, as though it should be obvious.</p><p>Marinette blinked. “Oh. Um, I guess. Well, I mean...” Did she dare mention that following their conversation, she'd spent all day agonizing over whether or not she should break up with Luka? That after giving three people the wrong change, her mother had sent her back to the kitchen, where she'd spent the afternoon slowly dissolving in the heat of the ovens, managing to over-knead tomorrow's bread dough in her distraction? “I guess it was too much to ask for that all my problems would disappear just like that,” she admitted lamely.</p><p>Chat Noir didn't comment on her vagueness. Instead he surprised her by tugging gently on a strand of her hair, which was just washed and drying rapidly in the heat. “Your hair's nice down,” he said. “You should wear it like that more often.”</p><p>“It's not practical at all,” Marinette replied, turning back to her plants. She emptied her jug of water into the mint pot. The wet patches on her pyjama bottoms were already drying, and she decided against getting changed. It was only water. “I'm always getting stuff in my hair as it is,” she added, putting the water jug down on the floor. “Today it was flour.”</p><p>“Don't all bakers get flour in their hair? Isn't that part of the job?”</p><p>“Not when you're wearing a hair net.”</p><p>Chat Noir let out a short laugh. “You managed to get flour in your hair <em>through</em> the hair net?”</p><p>She pouted at him, which set him off again.</p><p>“Shut up,” she grumbled. “Do you know how hard it is to wash flour out of hair? Flour and water make a sort of glue, you know.”</p><p>His laughter redoubled, and he had to lean on the balcony railing for support. “Oh no,” he giggled, “How did you get it out?”</p><p>“Well, first you brush as much of it out as you can, onto a towel so you can throw it in the bin afterwards,” she said, ticking the steps off her fingers. “Once you've got as much of it out as you can, you put like half a bottle of conditioner directly onto your scalp and rub it in all the way to the tips, until it's absolutely everywhere. <em>Then</em> you wash you hair until it all comes out.” It usually took two washes, but being in the kitchen today had made her sweat so much that most of the flour had already turned into a crusty paste, which had made the whole operation far more difficult.</p><p>“Wow, you've got that technique down,” Chat Noir remarked, still grinning at her. “How often does this happen to you?”</p><p>“Way too often,” Marinette grumbled, then - “Hey! Stop! I <em>just</em> finished brushing it!”</p><p>“Messy hair suits you better,” he said, reaching towards her with his left hand when she caught his right and pushed it away. Black strands fell from his claws, tickling her nose, and she tried to blow them away as she leaned backwards, out of his reach.</p><p>“No it doesn't, and besides, I bet your hands are all dirty from running around on dusty rooftops all evening!”</p><p>“Miraculous costumes don't get dirty,” he countered, dodging her hands as he gained on her, and he couldn't argue because she knew it was true.</p><p>She backed into the railing and grabbed his left wrist too, but he tangled his fingers in her hair before she could pull his hand away, grinning triumphantly as he ruffled it. He wasn't using his super strength, and he was being careful not to claw her or pull too hard. But that didn't endear him to her much.</p><p>Marinette had an idea.</p><p>“Chat <em>Noiiir</em>-” She let go of his wrists and let her arms fall to her sides in false defeat. Delighted, he reached out to muss her hair with both hands, and she darted forward, poking at his sides. He jumped back with a startled yelp, clamping his arms down.</p><p>“Cheater!”</p><p>“There are no rules in this game!” she crowed, reaching up to bury her hands in the blond mass of his hair and ruffling it vigourously. He backed off, tripped on her table and fell into the deck chair behind it, and she followed him mercilessly, leaning one knee on the edge of his seat so she could get at him. Every time he tried to grab her hands, she poked at his sides again. Eventually he slumped back in the chair, pouting, and it was her turn to let out a breathless giggle.</p><p>“Too bad for you I actually look gorgeous with messy hair,” he said, his haughty air belied by the crooked smile trying to curl his lips.</p><p>“More like your hair is always messy anyway,” Marinette retorted. She stood, pulling her hands out of his hair with more reluctance than she wanted to think about (it was softer than it looked), and tapped his nose for emphasis. “What would it even look like if you styled it? I can't picture it at all.”</p><p>She couldn't see his eyebrows, but the top of his mask disappearing under his fringe told her he was raising them. “You'd be surprised,” he said cryptically. Then he grabbed her hands and pressed them back onto his hair. “Why don't <em>you</em> try styling it?” he grinned.</p><p>Marinette blinked in surprise, then rolled her eyes. “Is this just a ploy to get me to pet you?” she asked.</p><p>“Yep, yes it is,” he said, closing his eyes as she let her fingers curl into his hair, more gently this time. “Please pet me, Princess.”</p><p>She laughed and scratched behind his leather ears. “Okay, but we'll have to swap places,” she said. “Sit on the floor in front of me.”</p><p>He obeyed and she sat behind him, one leg on each side of his body, leaning forward in the deck chair to bury her fingers in his hair. A belated thrill of anxiety struck her then – wasn't this too intimate for Chat Noir and Marinette's friendship? Since when were they close enough to play with each others' hair?</p><p><em>Since he started it,</em> said a petulant voice in her mind. <em>He's the one acting like we're close all of a sudden. I'm just playing along.</em></p><p>Besides, it was nice to hang out with Chat Noir as her civilian self. She could be affectionate with him without worrying about leading him on. As Ladybug she knew that Chat Noir was a very cuddly cat, and that between fighting akuma and trying not to get his hopes up, Ladybug's affection wasn't quite enough.</p><p>She was startled out of her thoughts by a low rumbling noise. Her fingers paused in their ministrations, and it stopped.</p><p>“Are you purring?” she asked, delighted. She'd only heard him do that once before. The context had caused her to snap at him for it, and she hadn't heard him do it again since – until now.</p><p>“I'm a cat,” said Chat Noir, a little defensively. “Cats purr when you pet them.”</p><p>“Could you do it again?” she asked.</p><p>He half-turned to glance back at her in surprise. “Uh, I guess? I've never tried to do it on purpose. It just kinda happens.”</p><p>He cleared his throat and let out a few low growly noises that made her snigger, but none of them resembled a purr.</p><p>“Well I guess that answers that question,” he said with a low laugh. “It'll probably start up again if you keep petting me,” he added hopefully. Sure enough, when her fingers began rubbing small circles into his scalp, the noise returned.</p><p>“I can <em>feel</em> it,” she remarked after a while. “It's actually kind of soothing for me, too.”</p><p>“Cat purrs have healing properties. They play them in hospitals sometimes,” he said, his voice grumbling pleasantly as the tail end of his purr turned to speech. It started again as soon as he stopped talking.</p><p>“Is that why you do it? To heal yourself when you get hit during a fight?”</p><p>He stopped purring for a moment, appearing to think about it. “I've never tried that,” he said. “I'd have to be petted, I guess, for it to work? I've never needed it though. Ladybug always fixes all the bumps and bruises afterwards anyway.”</p><p>Marinette, who had been making her way slowly up his scalp, stopped again when she got to his leather ears. She knew he had human ones under his hair – she'd felt them during the massage – but she also knew he could move the cat ears to express emotion, and that they enhanced his hearing. She ran her thumbs lightly over the back of them and felt him shiver.</p><p>“You can feel that?”</p><p>“Yup,” he murmured, sounding sleepy. “S'nice. Do it again.”</p><p>Marinette obliged, and had to hold back another giggle as he practically melted into her hands. The purring grew louder as she rubbed along the bottom edges of them. They were fused to his scalp the way his mask was fused to his skin, like a part of him.</p><p>“Your head is too heavy for me to hold and massage at the same time,” she complained, letting go. He let it fall back, but he was too tall to lean comfortably on the bar of the deck chair, and his head fell backwards between her knees, not quite touching the fabric. He pouted, and the purring stopped.</p><p>“More pets!” he said, and she jokingly patted his face with the palm of her hand. “Nooo, not like that.”</p><p>“You're not letting me do it right,” she pointed out, booping his nose again. He clicked his teeth half-heartedly towards her finger as though to bite it before pulling his head upright again.</p><p>“<em>More</em> pets,” he repeated, and she was already burying her hands in his hair.</p><p>“Okay, I'm just gonna say it,” she said after a quiet moment. “Your hair is softer than mine and I am insanely jealous.”</p><p>He chuckled. “I take good care of it.”</p><p>“I can tell,” she said. “I don't think most boys use conditioner, but you definitely do.”</p><p>“Mm-hm.” She could hear the laughter in his voice even though he hadn't actually opened his mouth.</p><p>“So... are you going to tell me which products you use?” she asked when he didn't elaborate.</p><p>“Trade secret,” he murmured.</p><p>“<em>Trade</em> secret? What, are you a hairdresser in real life? No wait, don't answer that,” she added quickly, but his laugh already told her she was wrong.</p><p>“You want to know my secret?” he whispered, letting his head fall backwards again so he could look at her, grinning.</p><p>“I'm not sure any more,” she said, internally quashing the tiny jump of panic that he might actually tell her something that would give his identity away and telling herself not to be silly.</p><p>“Head pets.” He beamed up at her.</p><p>She snorted. “Head pets?”</p><p>“Head pets,” he repeated, solemn now. “Things get softer when you pet them. It's a scientific fact.”</p><p>“I should be getting you to pet me, then,” she said, and immediately regretted it when he stood and grabbed her hands to pull her out of the chair.</p><p>“All you had to do was ask!” He grinned, green eyes lit up by her fairy lights.</p><p>“Wait, no, I didn't mean it!”</p><p>“Come on Princess, don't be shy!” He had her on her feet now and had somehow managed to slip around her to sit in the deck chair.</p><p>“My hair's already a mess because of you, I'm not letting you touch it again!”</p><p>“I'll tidy it,” he said, grabbing her hips and pulling them firmly down so she had no choice but to sit in front of him. She tried to get up again and his legs crossed in front of her chest.</p><p>“Chat!”</p><p>“I'll be really gentle, I promise,” he said, still playful. He wasn't touching her hair yet, though.</p><p>She sighed. “Fiiine,” she said. “Just a little bit, okay? And get your feet out of my lap.”</p><p>Chat Noir let out a snort and settled his feet on either side of her. His fingers brushed her hair, rearranging her fringe into something resembling its usual shape before carefully threading his fingers down through the hair at the base of her scalp. When his fingers began to rub tiny circles there, she let out a pleased hum.</p><p>“You're surprisingly good at this,” she remarked.</p><p>“You didn't think I would be?”</p><p>“I thought your claws would get in the way.”</p><p>“Not if I'm careful,” he said, shifting slightly upwards.</p><p>His purring started up again after a few moments of silence, and he paused, as though he himself hadn't been expecting it.</p><p>Marinette giggled. “I'll take that as a compliment,” she said, and he laughed with her.</p><p>“You hair's soft, too,” he confirmed, resuming his task.</p><p>“You can feel it through the costume?” she asked, hoping he wouldn't hear the note of envy in her voice.</p><p>“Sort of,” he said, and she wondered – not for the first time – just how much the wearer influenced the costume. She didn't remember much of a difference from the one time she'd borne the cat ring, but then, she'd been somewhat distracted by the akuma and sentimonster they'd had to beat.</p><p>The sun was gone now, and the sky was turning from deep pink to dark purple. The fairy lights she'd plugged in when she'd come up here glowed in the corner of her eyes, tugging at her attention, and she closed them. Chat Noir had worked his way from the nape of her neck to the crown of her head and was now threading his fingers over her ears so he could do it again at another angle. Marinette found herself softening into his hands – <em>she</em> wasn't too tall to lean against the deck chair – and she wondered where on Earth he'd learned such magic. She felt more relaxed now than she had in weeks – no, months.</p><p>“Hey, Chat Noir?” she murmured, the words slow and thick on her tongue.</p><p>“Hm?”</p><p>“Thanks again.”</p><p>“Again?”</p><p>“For this, and also for last night,” she clarified. She hoped he understood her this time because forming sentences was increasingly difficult.</p><p>“Oh,” he said. Then, belatedly, as though he, too, were struggling to stay awake: “No problem.”</p><p>It was the purring, she decided sleepily. He was right, there was something comforting about it. Marinette idly wondered if her parents would let her adopt a kitten.</p><p>It was her last coherent thought before sleep finally caught up to her, wrapping around her mind like a soft, dark blanket. This time, when she woke up the next morning, it was in her own warm bed, with only a fleeting memory of strong arms laying her gently down there, a careful claw tucking hair behind her ear. Her hair, of course, was a cat's cradle of knots, but she couldn't find it in herself to be mad at him.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Everything I wanted</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello? Yes excuse me, what is this angst doing in my fluff?</p><p>Thanks to marikittynoir aka mozzys_studio for saying Everything I Wanted by Billie Eilish had Chat Blanc vibes and setting off the fic gremlins in my brain.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"I had a dream</p><p>I got everything I wanted</p><p>Not what you'd think</p><p>And if I'm being honest</p><p>It might have been a nightmare..."</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Marinette is kissing Adrien, and it is heaven. The second he told her he loved her, all the jittery self-conscious panic she felt around him dissolved into warm fizz in her heart, which is now close to bursting with joy. He's holding her hand, his other is hand on her arm, pulling her closer. He's wearing the beret she made for him – the one that somehow made him realize that he loved her. She can't believe this is real, and yet it has to be. She can hear her friends cheering behind her, feel the warmth of his lips on hers, smell the heat of the sun on his skin, and yet she's so dizzy with happiness it feels like she's falling, falling...</em>
</p><p>
  <em>...she </em>
  <span>is</span>
  <em> falling, cold air whipping her face, dropping down towards water, angling her red-shod feet to land on a floating bus just as his voice shouts -</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Now you're breaking more than my heart, Marinette!"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ice seizes her gut, and she glances back towards him –only to see her partner, akumatized. "</em>
  <span>What?!</span>
  <em>" she yelps, and lands badly on the bus, just barely staying out of the water. "What did you call me?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He stands over her, spreading his arms. "Give me a hug... </em>
  <span>Marinette!</span>
  <em>"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The venom in his voice knocks the breath out of her, almost pinning her to the spot, but survival instinct kicks in when he tries to cataclysm her. She jumps away, leaping frantically from car to car, but he's gaining on her, he's been here a long time and he knows all the paths and short cuts over the water and she can't figure out how he </em>
  <span>knows</span>
  <em>, how does he </em>
  <span>know</span>
  <em> her, how did this happen, he's coming, he's going to destroy her and then himself and everything that's left, which is almost nothing, she can't let him do it but she doesn't know what to do, Bunnix is gone and she can't escape and he's gaining on her, he's coming, he's THERE-</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Everything went dark.</p><p>"Marinette!"</p><p>She gasped, suddenly hot and sweaty in her suit – no, not her suit –</p><p>"Marinette! Wake up! Marinette!"</p><p>Tikki! She must have detransformed, and now she was tied up, something smothering her, blocking her vision –</p><p>"Marinette, it's just the pillow! Calm down and breathe! It was a dream, Marinette!"</p><p>...A dream?</p><p>Marinette forced herself to stop moving and focus on what she could feel. Blankets damp with sweat tangled around her limbs. Hair in her mouth and a large, soft pressure on her face. She took three deep breaths through the soft thing. The air was hot, but at least she was breathing. Trying not to panic again, she began to wiggle her arms out of the blankets until her hands were free. When she pushed away her cat pillow, wiping the hair away from her face, the full moon shone down through her skylight, almost blinding her. She was breathing too fast. She sat up, pulling her knees to her chest, and scanned the bedroom, making mental lists of the objects she could see and feel while she forced shaky breaths into her lungs. Her brain refused to count, so she held each breath for as long as she could before blowing the air slowly out through tightly pursed lips. Tikki nuzzled her hands, clutched tight over her knees. She was stroking Marinette's fingers with her tiny paws and murmuring soft reassurances that barely registered.</p><p>As memories of where she was trickled back into her consciousness, details of the nightmare fell away, like the black dust of a cataclysmed object.</p><p>Or person.</p><p>
  <em>Don't think of that don't think of that think of now here this room</em>
</p><p>A shadow passed over the moon and she looked up -</p><p>- to see the object of her nightmare staring down at her.</p><p>Marinette let out a strangled cry. The creature jumped back, eyes like green headlights, pupils shrinking to tiny slits, and she realized it was Chat Noir, his shiny black suit reflecting the moonlight. He was saying something, but she couldn't hear it through the glass and over the sound of her own harsh breathing.</p><p>Tikki, who had retreated to the shadows behind her, whispered: "Go talk to him! It'll take your mind off the nightmare."</p><p>Marinette stared at Chat Noir's silhouette against the moon for a few more seconds before Tikki's words kick-started some more rational reflex. She felt her hand open the skylight.</p><p>"- sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to scare you Marinette!" His voice was nervous.</p><p>Marinette stood on her bed. The cool night air hit her sweat-sticky skin and she shivered. She said nothing.</p><p>Chat Noir looked at her uncertainly. "I'll, um, I'll go," he stammered.</p><p>"No!"</p><p>The shout echoed off the roofs, and making them both jump. Chat Noir stared at her for a second. Then his eyes travelled down her arms to where she'd grabbed his hand with both of her own. She was squeezing it so tightly it was hurting her.</p><p>Marinette snatched her hands away from his jerkily, mumbling an apology. Chat Noir just stared at her for a long moment. She looked away. She knew she should say something, laugh it off, make an excuse, but her brain was still half-frozen in panic and all she could think about was that she didn't want him to leave.</p><p>"Are you..." He reached out slowly, so as not to startle her, and the pad of his thumb brushed her cheekbone. It came away wet. "Are you crying?"</p><p>His fingertips lined her jaw, tilting her face gently to meet his eyes. Green sclera, black pupils dilated with worry. Nothing white or blue about him, just her partner, alive and well and unakumatized, visibly concerned about her.</p><p>Marinette felt the lump rise once more in her throat, and before she could stop herself, she burst into tears.</p><p>She buried her face in her hands, horrified, but before she could apologize she felt him pulling her forward, and then somehow he was engulfing her in a tight hug. She hesitated no more than a second before throwing her arms around him, too. Chat Noir held her close, cupping her head with one hand while rubbing soothing circles into her back with the other, whispering soft words to the crown of her head as she sobbed helplessly onto his suit.</p><p>How long they stayed like that, neither of them knew. In the relative quiet of the Parisian night, time suspended itself, and Marinette allowed herself to forget about secret identities just long enough to cry her heart out in her best friend's arms.</p><p>When her sobs had run themselves down to sniffles, his voice brought her back to the present.</p><p>"Did you have a nightmare?"</p><p>She nodded, not trusting herself to speak without setting the tears off again.</p><p>"Wanna talk about it?"</p><p>She shook her head. She really needed to grab a tissue, but she didn't want to let go of him just yet.</p><p>Seeming to read her mind (or maybe just noticing the increase in sniffles), Chat Noir unzipped one of his pockets and took out the packet of tissues he always kept on hand for whenever Monsieur Ramier got akumatized. She unwrapped her arms from around his waist – he was sitting at the edge of her skylight, his feet dangling over her bed – and took them gratefully, although she didn't move from where she stood right in front of him. Noticing the wet patch of her tears on the front of his not-quite-waterproof suit, she took out another tissue and pushed it against his chest.</p><p>"Sorry, I got your suit wet," she croaked.</p><p>He let out a low chuckle and took the tissue from her. "It's okay," he said. "I'm sorry I scared you."</p><p>"You didn't... I mean, you did, but I was already scared. I'm... thank you for being here. I don't know why you were, but..."</p><p>It occurred to her then that she had no idea why Chat Noir was there in the first place. A tiny needle of fear pricked her gut as several unlikely possibilities ran through her mind: <em>Akuma? Hawkmoth? Did he figure out I'm Ladybug??</em></p><p>She didn't have to wonder long.</p><p>"To be honest, I was having trouble sleeping, and... well, something felt wrong. I guess I felt like checking up on you." She looked up at him in surprise, just in time to see him hide his embarassment behind a cheeky grin and a wink. "Cats have a sixth sense, you know."</p><p>Marinette found herself smiling for the first time since she'd woken up.</p><p>"The only sixth sense you've got is one for the worst possible timing," she joked, poking him in the side. "Do you have any idea how scary is was, looking up from my bed and seeing those glowy green eyes?" She wasn't about to admit that it had been the moonlight turning his suit white that had scared her. That would take more explaining than she was willing to get into right now.</p><p>He pouted. "I said I was sorry."</p><p>"I know, Chat Noir, I'm teasing," she reassured him. "Though I'm not sure about this whole sixth sense thing." If a sixth sense did exist between them, Marinette was willing to bet it had to do with their bond as superheroes. Better not to let him think too hard about it while she was just Marinette.</p><p>"If it wasn't a sixth sense, then explain to me why I felt the need to check up on you?"</p><p>Marinette tapped her chin, pretending to think about it. "I dunno, maybe you missed me?"</p><p>The surprise on Chat Noir's face was comical. "I didn't know you could be such a tease, Marinette Dupain-Cheng!" He smirked. "As it happens, I do care about you. You're my friend, and all my friends are very important to me."</p><p><em>How can he say such sweet things in such an annoying way?</em> She wondered.</p><p>"Half of me wants to hug you and the other half wants to punch you," she told him.</p><p>He nodded solemnly. "I get that a lot. I'll accept both."</p><p>"You'd accept me punching you?"</p><p>"You'd probably miss, <em>Mademoiselle Maladroite</em>."</p><p>She narrowed her eyes at him, but she was still feeling too vulnerable to attempt to punch (even jokingly) the boy who had just brought her back from the nightmare. He must have seen some of that vulnerability in her eyes, because his gaze softened, and he smiled at her.</p><p>"At least tomorrow's Sunday, right? You can sleep in?"</p><p>"We're open Sunday mornings," Marinette groaned. She ducked down just far enough to see her alarm clock. It was 2:35AM. She sighed. "I have to get up at four to get the bread ready with my dad," she explained. "If I go back to sleep now, it's going to be way harder to get up later."</p><p>"That's rough, buddy," he said, and Marinette scowled at him.</p><p>"Did you just..?"</p><p>"Want me to stay up with you?"</p><p>Marinette blinked. "Don't you want to go back to sleep now you know I'm okay?"</p><p>Chat Noir looked at her, and as well as she knew him, it occurred to her that green sclera were far more difficult to read than human eyes. "Are you really okay, though?"</p><p>Maybe it was the weird hour, but Marinette couldn't bring herself to lie to him. "I guess... I'd be okay if you stayed," she admitted, not looking at him. Tikki was a great help usually, but Marinette knew from experience that the dream would haunt her until their next patrol. Or until she'd spent an hour or two forgetting it with him. It probably wouldn't hurt to do that as Marinette.</p><p>"Okay, fine," she said. "But we can't make too much noise, and my parents <em>cannot</em> find you here. As soon as my alarm goes, so do you."</p><p>Chat Noir's eyes danced in amusement, and Marinette felt a flush of embarassment. Why couldn't she just act grateful for his presence? He was doing her a favour, and she was treating him like a stray she was indulging by letting him in.</p><p><em>It's his fault for being so annoying about it</em>, said a petulant voice in her head.</p><p>He cut through her inner quarrel.</p><p>"Shall we hang out inside or outside?"</p><p>"Outside," she said immediately. "Less chance of waking my parents. Here, I'll get us something to sit on."</p><p>Five minutes and much back and forth between her room and the roof later, they were sitting side by side on a blanket and cushions with their backs against the wall and a plate of cookies between them (generously donated by Tikki), looking out over the Place des Vosges. What they could see of it, anyway. There had been a tense moment when he'd remarked that Ladybug sometimes brought the same picnic blanket to patrol, and she'd had to shrug it off and say they were a pretty common brand, but he hadn't pushed it, thankfully.</p><p>"Do you get nightmares a lot?" he asked after they'd demolished most of the cookies.</p><p>Marinette shook her head. "It's only started happening recently, and it's always the same one."</p><p>"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?"</p><p>Marinette shook her head. "It's not like I can remember much of it, anyway. It's frustrating, because maybe if I did remember, I'd be able to process whatever it is it's trying to tell me and be done with it."</p><p>"Huh," he said. "That's weird. I've been getting dreams like that, too. Like some weird repressed memory thing."</p><p>"Really?"</p><p>"Yeah, except it's not always a nightmare. Sometimes it feels like a really good dream, but when I wake up, all I remember is the feeling I had in it. And... and when I remembe who and where I am... I feel this weird, deep sadness, even though my life is better now that it's ever been before."</p><p>He turned to her then, and his eyes took on that same inscrutable quality as before.</p><p>Marinette looked away. "It's always a nightmare for me," she said quietly. "But it always starts as a nice dream. I don't remember what happens in it, just that it's good. Amazing, even. But then, suddenly..."</p><p>"It all falls apart," he finished.</p><p>Marinette glanced up and away again just as quickly. The questions in his eyes scared her.</p><p>"Stupid brains trying to make us think about our feelings and stuff," she muttered, and he laughed, which was what she'd intended. "They're like those wise old men in fairy tales who hand out weird metaphores about the meaning of life," she continued. "Why can't you just tell me what it is you need me to know? I don't have time to work out your riddles, subconscious brain!"</p><p>"Hey, be nice to your brain," he said, reaching out to ruffle her hair. His hand lingered, and she let her head fall to his shoulder. "It's a good brain. It works hard."</p><p>"Are you kidding me? My brain can barely get me to school on time. It's constantly forgetting things that are really important, like assigments that are due or promises I've made! It requires way more sleep than most people's brains, but only at the least appropriate times, like in class, or – did I ever tell you I fell asleep in the cinema once?"</p><p>"Your brain remembers everyone's birthdays, favourite foods and colours, and it always knows exactly what to say to make someone feel better," he countered. Marinette barely had time to wonder how Chat Noir knew all these things about her before he continued: "Your brain produces incredible designs – I saw that magazine feature with your hat, by the way, and I heard you designed an album cover for <em>Jagged Effing Stone. And </em>you make your own clothes. You're, what, fourteen or fifteen? And you're already more talented than a lot of the adults I know."</p><p>Part of Marinette's brain wondered, not for the first time, if Chat Noir knew her in real life.</p><p>The rest of it was blushing furiously.</p><p>"That's just because I get obsessed about stuff and forget to eat and sleep sometimes," she muttered, keeping her head on his shoulder and hoping the fairy lights would be too dim for him to see how red her face was.</p><p>"That's a superpower, Marinette," Chat Noir insisted. "But it's like any superpower, there are downsides. You just have to learn how to deal with them." He hesitated, then went on: "I hyperfixate too, you know."</p><p>"You do?" She craned her neck, trying to look up at him without taking her head off his shoulder. It felt awkward and uncomfortable, so she gave up.</p><p>"Yeah, but I don't have any productive hobbies like you," he said. "I'm more likely to get lost in a video game or an anime. I'd forget to sleep if I didn't put a timer and several alarms on my phone."</p><p>"That... kinda feels like cheating," Marinette admitted. "I feel like I should be able to manage without. Like it's not self-discipline if I'm using my phone as a crutch."</p><p>"It's not a crutch, it's a tool," he insisted. "Self-discipline is still necessary to obey the alarms, switch off and get ready for bed. I need at least three alarms to be able to do that because I have so much trouble switching from anime mode to sleep mode. Or any other mode, really."</p><p>"When you put it like that, I guess..."</p><p>They sat in silence for a while. At some point during their conversation, Chat Noir's arm had settled around her shoulders, and he was playing with her hair absentmindedly. The now-empty plate of cookies had been pushed aside, and the warmth of his body against her side was comforting in the cool of the night.</p><p>Marinette found later that she couldn't remember what else they talked about, just that it was easy. It reminded her that even though she had no idea who he was behind the mask, Chat Noir was the one person she was closest to, apart from maybe Tikki. As much as Marinette loved and appreciated Alya, she was always <em>on</em>, always competent, always energetic, while still being the down-to-earth bestie who talked Marinette out of her thought spirals and texted her to make sure she was up for school. There was something amazing about Alya that made Marinette feel a little inferior, through no fault of Alya's – just because she seemed to be so much more on top of her life, whereas Marinette was constantly struggling.</p><p><em>Alya doesn't moonlight as a superhero,</em> Tikki would say.</p><p>She could have, though, and that was what hurt in Marinette's moments of self-doubt. Sometimes she wondered if she'd been right in her first instinct to give the Ladybug earrings to Alya. Maybe she should have been more direct in presenting them to her. She'd been incredible as Rena Rouge, after all. Only the knowledge that Master Fu had chosen <em>her</em>, Marinette, and nobody else, kept her from spiralling completely in those moments.</p><p>So it was immensely comforting to know that her strong, fearless, happy-go-lucky partner was also secretly struggling with such silly things as remembering to eat and sleep.</p><p>A click from the room below them stopped their conversation in its tracks.</p><p>"Marinette?"</p><p>
  <em>Oh crap! </em>
  <span>Chat Noir scrambled up in a panic, snatching his warmth away from her, and Marinette wondered if he'd ever get over the lingering fear of her father instilled in him by the Weredad incident.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She grabbed his hand and motioned for him to sit still and be quiet.</span>
</p><p>"I'm up here, Papa," she said, turning away from Chat Noir and peering down through the skylight. Her phone was on, vibrating next to her pillow, and she saw Tikki flit over discreetly to swipe it off.</p><p>"Up already?" Tom's eyebrows shot up. "Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?"</p><p>"Ha, ha." She stuck her tongue out at him and he chuckled. "You use the bathroom first, I'll be down in about twenty minutes."</p><p>"Alright sweetie."</p><p>When he'd closed the trap door to her bedroom, Marinette turned back to see Chat Noir watching her with something between admiration and wariness.</p><p>"You're used to this, aren't you?" he said.</p><p>"Used to what?"</p><p>"Hiding things from your parents."</p><p>
  <em>Oh CRAP.</em>
</p><p>"Only since a certain cat started visiting me," she retorted, poking him in the ribs. "Now get out of here before I have to do it again!"</p><p>If the unease his words had woken in her showed on her face, Chat Noir didn't mention it. Together they stood and stretched, noticing the tiniest hint of dawn peeking over the eastern horizon.</p><p>Then, without warning, he hugged her again.</p><p>"Thanks for letting me stay," he murmured into her ear.</p><p>Marinette let out a surprised laugh. "You're the one who cheered me up after my nightmare," she said. "I should be thanking you."</p><p>"I needed the company as much as you did," he said, pulling back to look at her fondly. She smiled at him.</p><p>"Anytime," she said, and meant it.</p><p>Later, she noticed that for the first time since she'd starting having the nightmare, it hadn't ruined her day. In fact, despite the early morning, the hard, hot kitchen work, and the boredom of being grounded, today was the best day she'd had in weeks. She spent the day humming the same refrain, a song she'd heard on one of Luka's playlists:</p><p> </p><p>"I had a dream</p><p>I got everything I wanted</p><p>But when I wake up I see</p><p>You with me"</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Cookies and cats</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Chat Noir cleans out Tikki's cookie stash and asks Marinette to teach him how to sew.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm bumping the rating up to a T just in case because there's one lame dirty joke in this chapter and also I can no longer be bothered checking for bad language (not that there's much of that either).</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was the cookies' fault, apparently. The night Chat Noir had found her panicking after a nightmare, they'd spent the rest of the wee small hours on the roof eating cookies, and now there was no getting rid of him.</p><p>“I'on't get 'ese a' home,” he'd explained when she'd confronted him about it, spilling crumbs everywhere. He swallowed and added: “My family's really strict about eating healthy.”</p><p>“So your version of teen rebellion is cheating on your diet?”</p><p>“That, and running around the rooftops of Paris in a catsuit without their knowledge,” he joked. “Seriously though, I'm not really on a diet. I can eat whatever I want as long as it's healthy. Cookies are not healthy, so they're not allowed unless it's a special occasion. My dad says sugar is poison.”</p><p>Marinette eyed the rapidly diminishing plate of cookies. “You should listen to your parents.”</p><p>“Says the baker girl with an endless stock of cookies in her room.”</p><p>He had her there.</p><p>Marinette wondered how on earth Chat Noir managed to feed Plagg. He'd often complained to Ladybug about his kwami's cheese obsession, how it meant he constantly had to have a stock of the stuff in his room and on his person. Did his parents know? If Plagg went through as much cheese as Tikki went through cookies, then surely that amount of it couldn't be considered healthy, even in a growing boy? What did Chat Noir tell his family to get them to allow it? Maybe she could ask on their next patrol. In the meantime, though, she'd have to swallow her curiosity.</p><p>She'd invited him inside tonight because for the first time in almost a month, it was raining, and since her parents were out on a date, there was no risk of him being caught. The storm that was currently rumbling over Paris had been slowly brewing for days, turning the air thick with a static humidity that had made everyone irritable. Like a tidal wave, the elated release she'd felt when the sky finally cracked open had gradually lapped into a gentle peace, and the repetitive drumming of raindrops on her skylight had lulled her mind into quiet focus while she worked on putting together a summer dress.</p><p>Until, that is, the drumming had morphed into a sharp rap, and she'd looked up to find a drenched Chat Noir giving her his biggest cute kitten eyes. He'd spoiled the effect somewhat by knocking continuously until she let him in.</p><p>Now he stood behind her wrapped in a towel, munching on Tikki's cookies, dripping water and crumbs while watching over her shoulder as she tried to sew the bottom hem of the dress. Needless to say, the gentle peace was gone.</p><p>A chocolate chip bounced off her shoulder and onto the fabric, rolling down to the floor. Marinette lifted her foot off the pedal and sighed.</p><p>“You're not going to let me concentrate, are you?” she said, turning towards him in her chair.</p><p>Chat Noir backed off quickly. “Sorry,” he said with a sheepish grin. “I just like watching people do things they're good at. It's... soothing and fascinating at the same time.”</p><p>Oh. Well, that was flattering.</p><p>“Like watching somebody play the piano really well?”</p><p>Chat Noir blinked. “You like watching people play the piano?”</p><p>Marinette shrugged. “I like the way their fingers move. It's hypnotic.” She narrowed her eyes as a grin spread over his face. “What?”</p><p>“Hypnotic, huh? Did I ever tell you that <em>I</em> play the piano?” He leaned over her with an exaggerated leer, and Marinette bit her lip to suppress a laugh.</p><p>“What, are you going to seduce me with your fingers?”</p><p>...</p><p>
  <em>...Oh god, did I just...</em>
</p><p>She watched in dawning horror as surprise and glee lit up his face. He clapped his hands over his mouth at the same time as she did, barely swallowing his reply.</p><p>“Shut up. Don't you dare.” She glared at him, cheeks hot.</p><p>“I didn't say anything! You're the one who-”</p><p>“Shut <em>up</em>, Chat Noir, or I <em>swear-”</em></p><p>“I didn't say anything <em>but you still thought it – </em>Oof!”</p><p>Apparently he hadn't expected her to tackle him to the floor. Marinette used the element of surprise to her advantage and, not knowing how else to punish him, set about tickling Chat Noir with the same grim determination she used to beat akumas as Ladybug.</p><p>Unfortunately, without her superhero costume, Marinette was no match for Chat Noir. He escaped her easily, scampering around her couch before leaping from it to her bed, turning to grin down at her.</p><p>“You're lucky I'm feeling gentlemanly tonight, or you'd be begging for mercy right now,” he said, wiggling his clawed fingers and showing far more teeth than necessary.</p><p>Marinette crossed her arms and pouted.</p><p>“No fair.”</p><p>He laughed. “You're so cute when you're flustered,” he teased. She scowled and stuck her tongue out, cheeks still aflame. He giggled.</p><p>“Just see if I give you head pets and cookies after this,” she grumbled, slumping onto her couch.</p><p>That brought him down quick enough. He threw himself into her lap, hugging her waist as he looked up at her with his best big kitten eyes.</p><p>“Nooo, Marinette, you can't deprive me of pets and cookies! That's animal cruelty!”</p><p>Marinette tried to keep the scowl on her face, but he was too silly, and the laughter escaped her anyway.</p><p>“You're awful, Chat Noir,” she accused, booping him on the nose.</p><p>“I'm <em>adorable</em>,” he retorted.</p><p>Marinette ruffled his hair, intending to push him off, but he closed his eyes and leaned into her hand like a real cat, and before she knew it she was scratching him behind the ears.</p><p>“You still haven't told me what products you use to get your hair this silky,” she murmured a little grumpily.</p><p>“I told you, it's a trade secret,” he said smugly, his voice vibrating a little with the beginnings of a purr. She didn't press him, instead relaxing into their new activity as though it were the most natural thing in the world.</p><p>It occurred to Marinette that she had gotten much closer to Chat Noir as her civilian self in the space of just a few weeks than she ever had as Ladybug. Sure, Ladybug and Chat Noir trusted each other with their lives, and had no trouble being in each other's personal space, but a lot of that trust was built out of necessity. Plus, Chat Noir was in love with Ladybug, and she knew that touching him like <em>this</em> while in costume might get his hopes up. She'd been serious about not playing with his feelings, so she kept her distance physically more than she otherwise would have with such a trusted friend. It was bad enough that sometimes she couldn't help but flirt back – on tough akuma days, their banter was often the only thing keeping her from panicking.</p><p>A tiny point of guilt needled its way into her gut. She was deceiving him, really. She wasn't quite sure why he'd chosen her – Marinette – to befriend and get close to, but she knew that she probably wouldn't have been quite so open to it if she hadn't known him as Ladybug. Being together like this – his head in her lap, her hands in his hair – scratched an itch for closeness with him that she hadn't realized was there. A completely platonic itch, of course, but still.</p><p>He interrupted her thoughts by flipping himself over so that he could peer up at her without taking his head off her lap.</p><p>“Hey,” he said, a small, determined frown puckering his mask.</p><p>“Hey what?”</p><p>“Could you teach me to sew?”</p><p>
  <em>...How unexpected.</em>
</p><p>“Um, I guess?” She glanced down to where his hands rested, splayed on the floor next to her feet. “Your claws might make it tricky though, if they get caught in the fabric.”</p><p>“I can handle my claws.”</p><p>Marinette smiled at him, still a little bemused at the sudden and unusual request. “Well, the first step would be getting off me.”</p><p>It took her less than a minute to set him up at her desk with some scrap fabric, a needle, and thread. It took him considerably longer to thread the needle.</p><p>“I told you your claws would make it difficult,” she said after five minutes of watching him fumble. She had to resist the urge to do it for him so he could try some actual sewing.</p><p>“Shush, I'm getting it,” he muttered. Marinette pressed her lips together, holding back a giggle. His shoulders were hunched and his face was twisted in concentration. He was holding the needle and thread so close to his face that she was almost worried about him poking himself in the eye.</p><p>“You're not holding the needle with your claws,” she noticed. “Why are you trying to hold the thread with them?”</p><p>“It's more precise?” He said uncertainly.</p><p>“Try using your fingertips instead.”</p><p>He did as he was told, poking the thread at the eye of the needle. It kept almost going in and then falling out, and he let out a low growl of frustration.</p><p>“How do you <em>do</em> this- oh! I did it!” His elation brought a smile to her face. “See, I told you my claws would be useful!”</p><p>“You were holding the thread with your fingers though.”</p><p>“Yes, but I pushed the thread through the eye of the needle with my claw,” he said proudly, demonstrating. The very tip of his claw did indeed fit through the eye of the needle.</p><p>Marinette rolled her eyes. “Okay, now since you're a beginner, you're going to pull that thread halfway through so you can knot both ends. That way it won't come out of the needle until you cut it.”</p><p>He followed her instructions as she taught him a basic running stitch. His stitches were very even for a beginner, and she told him so.</p><p>“Really? You're not just saying that?”</p><p>“I wouldn't say it if it weren't true.”</p><p>He beamed at her, and his happiness warmed her heart. She resolved to praise him more often as Ladybug, too.</p><p>By the time he'd finished sewing a hem into the fabric, Marinette was wondering if Chat Noir might be a natural at this.</p><p>“What next?” he asked, eyes wide with interest.</p><p>“Wanna try the sewing machine?”</p><p>Chat Noir's eyes widened even further, and he glanced warily at the sewing machine.</p><p>“It won't bite you,” Marinette said, hiding a smile.</p><p>“I know,” he replied. “It's just... it's loud and intimidating, I guess. It goes so fast, too, what if I get it wrong?” He clutched the little scrap of fabric in his hands as though afraid the machine might ruin all his good work.</p><p>“If you get it wrong, I'll give you another scrap to try on,” Marinette said, shrugging.</p><p>Chat Noir frowned. “I don't want you wasting your fabric for me.”</p><p>“It's not a waste if they're scraps,” she insisted. “Sewing is a pretty wasteful activity on its own. You're always cutting away excess fabric and thread, so I just keep it all to stuff ragdolls and cushions. It won't make a difference if some of those scraps are sewn up.”</p><p>Chat Noir eyed the machine for a few more seconds before nodding. She thought about showing him how to thread the machine, but decided to leave that for another time. He'd had enough trouble with a regular needle. So instead, she sat him down, showed him how to place the fabric under the presser foot, and instructed him to press on the pedal – slowly.</p><p>“W-woah!” he stammered when it started moving. He yanked his foot off the pedal so fast that he banged his knee on the table.</p><p>Marinette couldn't help but laugh, and Chat Noir pouted.</p><p>“Not funny.”</p><p>“I'm sorry, Chat Noir,” Marinette said, recovering slightly. “I'm not making fun of you, I promise. That happens to everyone the first time they press the pedal.”</p><p>“Even you?”</p><p>“Especially me! You know how uncoordinated I am!”</p><p>“And yet you manage to make such amazing clothes,” he mused, eyeing her suspiciously, as though she could have been faking her clumsiness all along.</p><p>“I work hard at it,” she said, ignoring his narrowed eyes. “Here, try again. You know what to expect now, so don't let it scare you. And remember, you're allowed to make mistakes.”</p><p>Chat Noir took a deep breath, squared his shoulders (Marinette suppressed another giggle), and turned back to the machine.</p><p>A minute later, she helped him cut the excess thread off the new pouch he'd made.</p><p>“Look, I did it!” he crowed, holding his creation up for her to see.</p><p>“You sure did,” she said. She turned the pouch over and frowned. “Huh. That's weird.”</p><p>Worry replaced the elation on his face. “Did I do something wrong?”</p><p>“No, it's nothing you did,” she said, running her thumb over the messy line of too-loose stitches on the underside of the fabric. “I guess the tension must have been off. Let me just...” She turned the tension dial up a notch. “There, that should do it. Wanna try again?”</p><p>He hesitated, but her bright smile won him over. She pulled her scrab fabric bin out from under the desk and held it out for him to choose.</p><p>“Don't pick anything that's not thin cotton,” she instructed. “I don't feel like changing the needle.”</p><p>“Gotcha,” he said, pulling out scrap of green.</p><p>But when he tried again, the stitches were even worse. Marinette fiddled with the tension settings again, re-threaded the machine, replaced the needle and threads, checked that he wasn't pulling or pushing on the fabric, tightened the tension screw on the bobbin, replaced the it with a new one, to no avail.</p><p>Chat Noir was getting more and more agitated. “I've broken your machine, haven't I?”</p><p>“No, Chat, you didn't,” she said distractedly, flipping through the user's manual. “Or if you did, then it would have broken soon anyway.” She sent him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Let me try.”</p><p>He got out of her seat and hovered anxiously over her shoulder while she adjusted the tension one more time. She grabbed another scrap of fabric and tried sewing with it.</p><p>The stitches came out perfect.</p><p>Marinette frowned.</p><p>“Try again?” she asked him.</p><p><span>His</span> stitches came out too loose again.</p><p>“So I am doing something wrong,” he said with a self-depricating chuckle. “I'm glad it's not broken at least.”</p><p>“It doesn't make sense!” said Marinette, tugging on her pigtails in exasperation. “You're doing everything the exact same way I would. It's like you're cursed or something!”</p><p>His eyes widened. “That's it!” he exclaimed.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“The black cat curse! That's what it is!” He laughed with relief. “I should have known! I can't use my computer when I'm suited up either, it gets really slow and bluescreens within the first five minutes.”</p><p>Marinette stared at him. “There's really a curse on the black cat miraculous? It's not just... some rumour?”</p><p>He nodded, and she wondered if the opposite could be true when she was Ladybug. Could she fix computer bugs while suited up?</p><p>“I guess I can't ask you to give me any more sewing lessons,” he said with a sad smile, interrupting her thoughts.</p><p>Marinette frowned. “Your curse only works on machines, right?”</p><p>“I think so?” he said.</p><p>“So I can still teach you hand sewing. If you still want to, that is.”</p><p>He blinked. “Really?”</p><p>“Of course. You're really good at it, for a beginner. And there are some projects you can't use a machine for – dolls, woollen things...”</p><p>He was grinning at her excitedly.</p><p>“I want to learn more then. Please,” he said.</p><p>By the time Marinette's parents arrived home, Chat Noir had hand-sewn two small pouches and was working on a third. Marinette had long since left him to his own devices, and was putting the finishing touches on her dress.</p><p>“Time for you to go home, Kitty,” she murmured as she heard the front door open downstairs.</p><p>He yawned and stretched, joints cracking. “Ow. Sewing hurts, apparently.”</p><p>She laughed softly. “Welcome to my world. Now get out of here, before my parents hear you.”</p><p>He climbed onto her bed (Marinette had to bite her lip to stop herself from screaming at him to <em>get those boots off her clean bedsheets</em>) and pushed open the skylight. The rain had stopped, leaving a fresh smell of wet dust and plants. Marinette followed him up, vaguely wondering if she should kiss him goodbye like they did when they had guests over, but he turned and hugged her instead.</p><p>“Thanks Princess,” he said into her hair. “I had fun.”</p><p>She huffed a laugh and hugged him back, and then waved as he bounded away across the wet rooftops, never slipping once.</p><p>She glanced downwards as she closed the window, and sighed at the mess he'd left on the floor. She couldn't be angry with him when she was the one who'd kicked him out, but it was past midnight, and the interruption had knocked her out of the zone. Sleepiness was catching up with her.</p><p>“Marinette,” Tikki's high voice warned her from somewhere close by. “Remember the time you didn't tidy up and stepped on a needle the next morning?”</p><p>Marinette sighed. “You're right.” She climbed down the ladder and gathered up the pieces of scrap fabric, sissors (he'd been using her paper sissors, she realized – she'd have to explain the problem with that next time he came) and the pouches he'd made.</p><p>She paused as her eyes fell on the third pouch. It was black, but he'd been sewing letters into it with pink thread. The letters were painstakingly neat, like a child's best handwriting, though apparently he hadn't thought to do the embroidery before sewing the pouch, and he'd sewn through both layers in several places.</p><p>“PRINCES” it said. He'd just started on the last S.</p><p>“Tikki!” she whisper-squealed. “Look at what he was doing!”</p><p>Tikki flew down from the bed. Her eyes grew big as she read the word. “Aww!”</p><p>“Right?!” Marinette pressed her lips together. “I must never let him know how cute this is. He'd never let me live it down.”</p><p>Tikki giggled. “I think it might encourage him to do more sweet things.”</p><p>“Speaking of sweet things, I'm sorry he ate all your cookies.”</p><p>“It's okay, I raided the bakery and ate all yesterdays unsold croissants.”</p><p>“Tikki! My parents are going to think I did that!”</p><p>“Hmm, I guess you better tell him to lay off my cookies next time...”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Pour un bouquet de roses (que je lui refusais)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter was supposed to feature video games. It doesn't.</p><p>Next chapter, okay?</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If you'd asked Marinette three weeks ago to tell you which hobby she might share with Chat Noir, she'd have answered video games without hesitation. If you'd probed further, she might have shrugged and added listening to Jagged Stone, or – not that he knew it was her – parkouring across Paris in magic suits. Never would she have guessed that the thing they'd end up doing together the most would be sewing.</p><p>Yet here they were. Marinette at her desk, chair swivelling periodically between the travel iron on her right and the sewing machine to her left, pressing and pinning and sewing and cutting, occasionally consulting her design notes. Behind her, just far enough to avoid being hit by the wheels of her chair but still bathed in the pool of lamplight around her desk, sat Chat Noir, painstakingly embroidering the word “Princess” onto a scrap of fabric that would soon be a pouch for Marinette – a thank you present for teaching him to sew. This was his second try at the pouch – he'd tried to embroider the first one <em>after</em> sewing it and had gone through both layers, rendering it somewhat useless – or so he thought. He didn't know that Marinette had added a third layer and turned it into a pincushion.</p><p>Chat Noir's presence had become an almost nightly occurrence, and Marinette – still grounded, still working in the bakery kitchen during the day – found herself looking forward to his company in the evenings. Technically she was supposed to ask for her parents' permission if she wanted to invite someone over. Tom and Sabine wouldn't deprive her of her friends' company entirely, but she doubted they'd approve of Chat Noir's presence in her bedroom almost every evening. Chat Noir had told her that he, too, was grounded, though for the sake of his secret identity, she hadn't asked why. Still, it made the two of them meeting secretly in her room feel like an act of rebellion, and the fact that they were using that time for sewing of all things made Marinette want to laugh at the absurdity of it.</p><p>Chat Noir's voice broke the quiet.</p><p>“What are you laughing at?”</p><p><em>Oops</em>.</p><p>“Nothing,” she said, embarassed.</p><p>The soft scrabble of claws and boots against her floorboards told her he was standing up to peer over her shoulder.</p><p>“Come on, Marinette, tell me!” he whined, finding nothing funny in the design notes she'd been consulting before getting sidetracked.</p><p>Marinette sighed goodnaturedly. It was about time they took a break, anyway.</p><p>“I was wondering what my parents would think if they caught us up here like...” Her hand swept through the air in a gesture that encompassed both her desk and the mess of scrap fabric, thread spools, and an open embroidery handbook lying on the floor.</p><p>Chat Noir chuckled. “They'd think it was the lamest teen rebellion ever.”</p><p>“Illicit embroidery,” she said with mirth in her voice.</p><p>“Sneaky sewing soirées,” he added, and they collapsed into giggles.</p><p>It was nice to have someone to be silly with, aside from her parents.</p><p>Recovering, Marinette stretched her arms above her head. Her hunched position over the sewing machine had turned her neck muscles to tough leather. She groaned, digging her fingers into her shoulders and only making it worse.</p><p>Chat Noir saw her wince and smirked, wiggling his claws at her. “Need some help there?” he asked playfully.</p><p>Marinette hesitated, but the ache in her shoulders coupled with the fact that he obviously wasn't expecting her to say yes spurred her to call his bluff.</p><p>“Yes, please!” she said, spinning in her chair so that her back was facing him. There was a moment of stunned silence, and she glanced smugly over her shoulder. “What are you waiting for?”</p><p>“I...”</p><p>“Chickening out?”</p><p>His eyes, wide with uncertainty at first, narrowed to her challenge.</p><p>“Excuse me, I am a cat, not a chicken,” he said, and she let out a chuckle as she felt his clawed fingers brush her hair out of the way and settle on her shoulders. “Tell me if I'm doing it wrong, okay?”</p><p>“M'kay,” she said, already relaxing under his hands.</p><p>Marinette knew that Chat Noir was capable of controlling what his claws touched, to an extent, but she had expected to feel them a little. Surely they would at least tickle her skin, or catch on the cotton of her t-shirt. Instead, though, she found herself wondering if he'd somehow gained the ability to retract them, because she couldn't feel them at all. Not even when he dug his thumbs into the muscles above her shoulderblades and began working his way up towards her neck, kneading out the tension. Through the fabric of her t-shirt, it was easy to forget that his hands were covered at all.</p><p>A small moan of happiness escaped her – and she froze.</p><p>
  <em>Oh no that sounded weird, why did I do that, now it's gonna be awkward and he'll leave and never come back -</em>
</p><p>Chat Noir burst out laughing. The sound yanked her out of her thought spiral and back into the real world, in which her partner would never pass up on an opportunity to tease her – with or without the mask.</p><p>“Sh-shut up.” Marinette scowled, crossing her arms and hoping he wouldn't notice her red-tinted cheeks.</p><p>He leaned over her shoulder in an attempt to see her face, grinning. “I'll take that as a compliment, Princess!” He sniggered all too gleefully.</p><p>She pushed his face away with the palm of her hand. “Stop leaning on my shoulders, you're making it worse!”</p><p>“You already undid all my good work,” he said, poking at her bunched up deltoids as he straightened again.</p><p>“You laughed at me,” she grumbled.</p><p>“Because <em>you</em> made it weird by tensing up,” he pointed out. “Now go back to sleep and let me do my thing.” He cupped her upper arms and shook them gently for emphasis.</p><p>She relented, if only because she was still sore, and he'd been good at it. A thought occurred to her, cutting through the remaining embarassment.</p><p>“Aren't you uncomfortable, standing up?”</p><p>He hummed thoughtfully. “It would be easier if I were sitting on the chair and you were on the floor.”</p><p>“How about you sit on the chaise instead?” Marinette suggested, jerking a thumb towards the back of her bedroom.</p><p>It took them less than a minute to get settled again, Marinette sitting with her back to the chaise, cross-legged on a cushion between Chat Noir's knees. He brushed her hair aside again, his fingers lingering a little.</p><p>“Come on, you can play with my hair later,” she said.</p><p>He chuckled. “So impatient. I <em>must</em> be good at this.”</p><p>She tilted her head back to pout at him upside-down, and he grinned.</p><p>“I can't rub your back if you do that,” he said. She sat up straight, and he pressed his fingertips into her shoulders once more.</p><p>The silence that fell over them was like a soft blanket, warming them and bringing them closer together. His movements were both gentler and more confident this time, and soon she gave up trying to figure out how he was managing not to claw her in favour of enjoying it. Her mind wandered, and through the tired whirl of thoughts flitting aimlessly through her head, Marinette noted that with anyone else, apart from her parents, her earlier embarassment would have needled its way into her gut and stayed there, ruining the evening and possibly the next few days. With Chat Noir, however, Marinette could be herself. He might tease her, but he'd never judge.</p><p><em>With anyone else but my parents, </em> she thought. <em> Is this what it's like to have a brother?</em></p><p>He was annoying enough to match her friends' descriptions of what siblings were like. Something about the idea bothered her, however, and although she couldn't put her finger on it, she quickly dismissed it. Chat Noir wasn't a brother to Marinette. Their closeness wasn't born of happenstance or obligation: it was a choice. Besides, Marinette quite liked being an only child. She suspected that her secret identity would be far more precarious if she'd had to hide it from a nosy sibling or three.</p><p>His humming, when it started, was so quiet that it barely brushed the surface of her consciousness. A half-familiar tune that wasn't the one he usually sang while waiting for her – the one she had to pretend didn't haunt her nightmares. No, this was different: a simple, familiar tune, but one she hadn't heard in so long that she couldn't place it until he began singing the words.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>À la claire fontaine<br/>
</em><em>M'en allant promener<br/>
</em><em>J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle<br/>
</em><em>Que je m'y suis baigné<br/>
</em><em>Il y a longtemps que je t'aime<br/>
</em><em>Jamais je ne t'oublierai.</em></p><p>
  <em>Sous les feuilles d'un grand chêne...”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“There's another verse?” she blurted out before she could stop herself. His hands paused in their ministrations and she cursed herself inwardly for breaking the spell.</p><p>“There are...” A thoughtful pause. “...five verses to that song.” His voice was low and quiet. It reminded her a little of her father's voice from when she was small, and too full of questions to sleep.</p><p>“Five?” she couldn't help but ask, but lowering her voice nonetheless. “I thought it was just a nursery rhyme.”</p><p>“A lot of nursery rhymes have more than one verse. They often have a deeper meaning than most people think.”</p><p>“Like old fairy tales,” she mused. “They weren't really meant for kids, more like cautionary tales.”</p><p>“Exactly.”</p><p>His hands began to move again, cupping her shoulders while his thumbs rubbed small circles into the muscles of her back. He was using less pressure now, and it felt more comforting than therapeutic. Marinette closed her eyes.</p><p>“I wouldn't have thought that kind of thing would interest you,” she murmured.</p><p>A quiet laugh, and warmth in his voice. “It was my mother's thing. She always sang me lullabies all the way through. When I got older, she told me what they meant. It was interesting.”</p><p>“Could you sing À la claire fontaine all the way through?”</p><p>He responded by singing.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>À la claire fontaine<br/>
</em><em>M'en allant promener...”</em></p><p> </p><p>Marinette never heard the end of the song, at least not consciously. She did dream of an oak tree, and a nightingale, of a rose she'd refused to take from him once, and many, many, many tears. The song wove its way into her heart until it was a part of it, a bittersweet weight tugging at the strings of her memory, red and black and green and blond. Something <em>important</em>.</p><p>It was gone when she woke up, tucked into a blanket on her chaise. She didn't remember him putting her there, and she wondered how long he'd been gone. It didn't feel like long. She could almost feel the spot on her forehead where he'd kissed her goodnight.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>If you look up (and translate) all the words to à la clair fontaine, you'll find that it fits quite well with the whole lovesquare thing, and adds a whole extra layer of angst and foreshadowing (especially if you've seen Chat Blanc...).</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Miraculous Kart</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>FINALLY I've finished this here take it. TAKE IT.</p><p>TW: Food.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"No more cookies!"</p><p>Chat Noir gaped at Marinette as though he couldn't believe she was serious. Marinette crossed her arms and pursed her lips, smothering the giggle that would have ruined her glare.</p><p>"But... but..."</p><p>"No buts!"</p><p>"But <em>whyyy!</em>" Chat Noir wailed regardless.</p><p>"Hush, before my parents come running up here," Marinette said, motioning for him to be quiet. "The living room window is open, they can definitely hear you!"</p><p>Chat Noir's expression shifted from despair through sheepishness and then sudden inspiration before settling on narrow-eyed deviance.</p><p>
  <em>Uh-oh.</em>
</p><p>Marinette lunged, but the cat was quicker, leaping out of her reach and onto the balcony railing before she could clamp her hand over his mouth. He danced away from her as she scrambled after him, cursing, and inhaled deeply.</p><p>"MEEEAAA-<em>AAH!</em>"</p><p>His cry echoed across the Place des Vosges, attracting the attention of a few pedestrians below, before Marinette yanked him by the tail and he came crashing back over the railing and into her.</p><p>He somehow managed to flip over and land precariously on all fours so he didn't crush her, but she still hit the tiles hard.</p><p>"Owww!" Marinette groaned, sitting up slowly. Luckily for her, a lifetime of dealing with her own clumsiness plus a year or so spent learning to fall off buildings in a super suit meant that Marinette knew how to catch herself without getting hurt too badly.</p><p>Chat Noir didn't know that, though.</p><p>"Are you okay? Did you bang your head?" His voice was taut.</p><p>"Only a little," Marinette assured him, rubbing the back of her head and accepting the hand he held out to her. She sat up and scowled at him. "I wouldn't have banged it at all if you hadn't yelled like that!"</p><p>Chat Noir's smile was one part relief and one part cheek.</p><p>"You're the one who pulled my tail, Princess."</p><p>"How else could I make you quit yowling the whole neighbourhood awake?"</p><p>"It's 8pm in August, nobody is sleeping right now."</p><p>"That's not -"</p><p>"Hey, is everything okay up there?"</p><p>Chat Noir and Marinette froze. The voice belonged to Marinette's father. He was looking up at them with amusement and some concern.</p><p>"Uh, hi, Monsieur Dupain-"</p><p>"It's Tom, Chat Noir, please. Now what seems to be the issue here?"</p><p>"It's nothing, Papa," Marinette cut in. "Chat Noir was just passing by and he stopped to say hello."</p><p>"Are you sure? We heard what sounded like a loud meow, and then a crash. Are either of you injured?"</p><p>The pair scrambled to answer at the same time.</p><p>"No no! We're fine-"</p><p>"She's banged her head, you might wanna look-"</p><p>"We were just messing about-"</p><p>"I'm so sorry, it's really all my fault-"</p><p>"I'm honestly <em>fine</em>-"</p><p>The sound of Tom's laughter cut through their babbling.</p><p>"Sorry, sorry," he said between chuckles. "I believe Marinette if she says she's fine. You're allowed to be up there, Chat Noir, just don't stay too late, okay? Marinette has to work tomorrow."</p><p>Chat Noir let out a relieved laugh, recovering some of his swagger. "I'll probably be leaving soon anyway, since Marinette won't share her cookies." He stuck his tongue out at her as he stood.</p><p>Tom blinked in surprise, and frowned. "Marinette! I thought we'd raised you better than that!"</p><p>Marinette stared at her father incredulously. "But Papa! He's been-" and then she cut herself off before she could reveal that he'd been coming over every other night for the past three weeks. Somehow she thought her parents wouldn't appreciate her 'forgetting' to mention that. "I have none left!" she blurted out instead.</p><p>This was a lie. There was a whole box full of them right there on her desk, and she was sure her father would see them and even if he didn't, Chat Noir would point them out...</p><p>"Ah," Tom said. "Well, then, how about I just go down and get you some?" And he was gone, apparently for more cookies.</p><p>Marinette blinked at the trap door for a few seconds before turning to scowl at Chat Noir. He was beaming.</p><p>"I've said this before, but I like your dad," he said with glee in his voice.</p><p>"If he knew just how many of our cookies you've been eating-"</p><p>"Then he'd probably kick me out, and I wouldn't be able to come back and keep you company while you're grounded," he finished, grinning like the cat that got the cookie.</p><p>Marinette just glared at him.</p><p>"Aww, c'mon <em>Purr-</em>incess." Chat Noir crawled forward to butt his head on her shoulder, like a real cat only with enough force to almost knock her over. Again. She pushed him away, and he smirked. "Tell you what – I'll play you for them."</p><p>Marinette blinked – then grinned. "Deal!" she said, smiling, just as the door to her bedroom opened again. "Thanks, Papa!" she sang, bouncing off her bed and down the ladder to take the plate of cookies off his hands. There was an assortment of treats as well as the usual chocolate chip cookies: macarons, palmiers, madeleines, speculoos, palettes bretonnes... Marinette made room for them on her desk, shifting Tikki's box out of sight behind her sewing machine.</p><p>"I brought drinks, too, in case you got thirsty," her father said, holding up a tray with a jug of home-made lemonade and two glasses in his other hand.</p><p>"That looks amazing, Monsieur- Tom!" said Chat Noir, taking the drinks tray. "Thank you so much!"</p><p>"Don't stay up too late," Tom replied, smiling. "Your mother won't be happy if she has to drag you out of bed, Marinette."</p><p>Marinette groaned. "I'll be good, Papa."</p><p>Tom winked and disappeared beneath the trap door, leaving them alone. Marinette turned back to Chat, ready to take him up on his offer, and paused at the look on his face.</p><p>"Chat? Are you okay?"</p><p>Chat Noir blinked, and the odd look in his eyes was gone so fast, she wondered if she'd imagined it.</p><p>"I'm fine," he said, smiling fondly at her. "Your dad's really cool to let you have a friend over when you're grounded."</p><p>"I'm only grounded because I broke some expensive plates at the Grand Paris Hotel and have to work at the bakery to pay for them," she said. "They know I would never do that on purpose."</p><p>"Still," he said, putting the drinks down next to her screen. He looked as though he wanted to say more, but didn't. Marinette knew better than to push it. Much as she wanted to know what Chat Noir's family life was like – from what little she'd gleaned, it wasn't very happy – it would be very easy for him to give away his identity by accident.</p><p>She picked up a controller instead, tossing the other to him. "Ready to get your butt kicked at Ultimate Mega Strike?" she said with a smirk.</p><p>He caught the controller, his mask quirking up in one corner. "Ohhh no, nuh-uh," he said with a lopsided smile. "I never said I'd play <em>that</em> with you. That wouldn't be fair, little miss Paris inter-high UMS champion."</p><p>"Wha- how do you <em>know</em> about that?"</p><p>"I watched the competition, like every self-respecting gamer in this city," he said. "You have other games, right?"</p><p>Marinette pouted, drawing a laugh from him as he settled into one of her chairs.</p><p>"Fine," she grumbled. Then she perked up. "I've got Miraculous Kart!"</p><p>"Ooh! I've been waiting to try that! But it came out right after I was grounded, and I'm not allowed games until September."</p><p>"That's just cruel," Marinette said.</p><p>"Have you played it yet?" he asked.</p><p>"A little," she said. "It's more fun with someone else, so I've mostly been playing with my parents."</p><p>That expression again – was it longing? Maybe she should stop talking about her parents.</p><p>She opened the game and waited for it to load.</p><p>"One cookie per round won," she said.</p><p>"Deal," he agreed, and the smirk was back on his face.</p><p>Five minutes later, Chat Noir was picking out his first cookie while Marinette gaped at the screen. She narrowed her eyes at him.</p><p>"You said you'd never played this before!"</p><p>"I haven't," he said through a mouthful of macaron, green eyes twinkling merrily. "I just happen to be good at a few other racing games, and this one's pretty similar."</p><p>Marinette huffed. "And here I was going easy on you because I thought you were a beginner."</p><p>Chat Noir grinned. "No need for that, Princess. Ready for round two?"</p><p>"You're going down, Chat Noir!"</p><p>But Chat Noir was <em>good</em> at this. He won round after round, humming delightedly over the treats, taking his time to pick each one and savouring them smugly.</p><p>"Maybe I should be going easy on you?" he teased during their ninth (or eleventh) round. He was already a lap ahead of her, his character – he'd picked Reflekta – spinning in her pink beetle to shoot a beam of light at her Troublemaker's limosine.</p><p>"Shuddup, stupid cat," Marinette growled through gritted teeth. She managed her combo just in time, turning immaterial and passing him as she sped down Trocadéro square.</p><p>"Hey, no pushing!" He complained, not for the first time, nudging her as she leaned to the left with her controller. Marinette ignored him. She'd apologized the first few times, but she really couldn't help it, her body was moving on its own.</p><p>Besides, she was finally closing in on him, dodging his beams and phasing right through him to the finish line -</p><p>"Wooo! <em>Boo-ya</em> Chat Noir, you just got owned Marinette-style!" she gloated, and stuck her tongue out at him as she hummed over the plate of treats. She did a little victory dance as she selected a speculoos and nibbled on it gleefully.</p><p>"You did that on purpose!" Chat Noir protested indignantly.</p><p>"I did not, but if it helped me win I might start," Marinette retorted, poking him.</p><p>Chat Noir's eyes narrowed, but then his pout split into a grin. "Ooh, Princess is playing dirty," he said. "Two can play that game!"</p><p>From that round on, all honour was thrown to the wind. Marinette leaned into Chat Noir, pushing him away from the screen and blocking his view. Chat Noir elbowed her in the ribs in retaliation. Marinette poked his side with her toes; Chat Noir clamped her foot to his side and tickled it while playing with the other hand. Marinette ruffled his hair until it was in his eyes; Chat Noir leaned into her neck, shaking his head vigorously so it tickled her and blocked her view. Marinette kicked his chair to the side, spinning it away from the screen; Chat Noir jumped out of it and sat in her lap instead. Neither of them were playing very well, but Marinette <em>was</em> winning about one match in three now so this was definitely an improvement. From her point of view, at least.</p><p>"<em>Ew!</em>" she squealed as Chat Noir licked her cheek, using the distraction to lean over her and grab an un-earned cookie in the middle of round thirty-something. "No licking, you beast!"</p><p>Chat Noir popped the cookie into his mouth with a smirk and turned back to the screen, passing her easily on Sandboy's magic carpet and winning the round.</p><p>"Hey, you've already had your cookie for this round!" Marinette protested, smacking at his arm as he reached across her for another one. "And you got it by cheating!"</p><p>"You've gotten all of yours by cheating," he pointed out, grabbing one at random and stuffing it in his mouth before she could push him away.</p><p>"It's not cheating if we're both doing it," Marinette quipped, flicking through the characters for the next round. She hesitated between Puppeteer and Befana, finally settling on Befana.</p><p>"Don't you feel weird playing family members?" Chat Noir asked, glancing sideways at her.</p><p>"A little at first," Marinette replied. "But when I asked Nonna what she thought of the game, she said she liked her character and wanted to play her against Weredad and Bakerix."</p><p>Chat Noir let out a surprised laugh. "Your family is seriously cool. My... family, they don't approve of this game too much. They think it makes fun of akuma victims."</p><p>Marinette glanced back at him, wondering which akuma he might be related to, and knowing she couldn't ask.</p><p>"I don't think so," she said instead, waiting as Chat Noir flicked between The Bubbler and Lady Wifi. "My dad did cry the first time he played Weredad, but I think it was more therapeutic than anything. That's the only character he plays now. Besides, it's not like the akuma victims are the villains. I wouldn't play a game like that."</p><p>"Me neither," he said. He selected Lady Wifi, and Marinette bit her lip. Next time she would let him pick first.</p><p>He won the next round, and the next one. Their conversation had toned down the cheating momentarily, but another five rounds fired their rivalry right back up. Marinette draped herself over Chat Noir's lap, vaguely attempting to trap his arms and lean on his controller, and Chat Noir retaliated by snapping the hairbands over her pigtails and flipping her hair over her face.</p><p>"Hey! Hairbands cost money you know!" she spluttered through a mouthful of hair.</p><p>"I'll get you some new ones after I finish crushing you." He held his controller above his head and won yet another round. She slumped fully onto his lap, and he glanced down and stuck his tongue out at her before reaching for a cookie. Marinette, struck by inspiration, used her feet and her weight to push his chair away from the cookies.</p><p>"Stop that! I earned that one!" He pouted down at her. She grinned in response, making herself as heavy and floppy as possible when he tried to push her off him. "C'mon, Marinette, you can't play like this anyway," he laughed.</p><p>"I can't move," she moaned, pushing out her bottom lip and making her eyes large. "You've beaten me and now too I'm sad!" She watched in amusement as worry flickered across his features for just a second before he realized she was joking.</p><p>"Sore loser," he teased, tickling her. She squeaked and wriggled off his lap, catching herself on the floor and retreating to her chair.</p><p>"You're getting better at resisting my attacks," she grumbled, eyeing him shrewdly and downing the last of her lemonade.</p><p>"Your cheating, you mean?" he grinned at her. "Guess I'm better at that, too."</p><p>Marinette's eyes narrowed. "Are you challenging me, kitty boy?"</p><p>Chat Noir's eyes widened. "Was that a pun, <em>Purr</em>-incess?"</p><p>"You're in for it this time, Chat Noir."</p><p>"Bring it on!"</p><p>She was losing again when the idea struck, and in any other circumstances Marinette would never have risked it. But Chat Noir had been winding her up all evening, goading and teasing and poking at her competitive streak, and now he was going to pay. He'd <em>licked</em> her, after all – he deserved it. Besides, she was Marinette at the moment, not Ladybug. It wasn't like she'd be playing with his feelings.</p><p>She leaned into his space as she veered left on Guitar Villain's dragon, shooting sonic booms in his general direction. He moved his controller away, ignoring her for now. Good.</p><p>Marinette waited until they were on the last stretch of road before the win, then turned her head to kiss his cheek, mashing her combo at the same time. She was lower than she'd thought, and her lips brushed his neck instead, but Marinette barely cared because it worked – the controller dropped from his hands and his Reverser went crashing into a building as she sped past the finish line. She jumped back, whooping.</p><p>"Ha!" she grinned, turning to see his face – and the rest of her victory speech died in her throat at the sight of his wide-eyed blush.</p><p>
  <em>Oh no...</em>
</p><p>She grinned at him regardless, ignoring the way her heart picked up nervously. He had to know she wasn't serious. He <em>had</em> to.</p><p>She watched him as he stared at her, surprise giving way to outrage tempered by something like admiration. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly, and Marinette's grin widened with relief and glee.</p><p>"<em>YOU-!</em>"</p><p>The trapdoor opened, interrupting them. Sabine Cheng stood in the doorway, frowning, and they froze.</p><p>"You two should both be sleeping," Sabine said sternly. "Chat Noir might be able to sleep in for all we know, but <em>you</em>, Marinette, have work in five hours."</p><p>Marinette recovered first. "Sorry Maman! We completely lost track of time!"</p><p>"Chat Noir, I hope your family know you're out this late," Sabine continued.</p><p>"Um, of course," Chat Noir stammered, standing up and rubbing the back of his head nervously. "I'll, um, I'll be going, then."</p><p>"Goodnight, Chat Noir," Sabine said. "Marinette, I'll see you at six. <em>Sharp,</em> or you'll be stuck with cleaning duty all day."</p><p>"Oui Maman," Marinette said quickly. She switched off the computer to show her good faith and followed Chat Noir up the ladder to her skylight. Sabine pulled the trap door closed, and both teens breathed a sigh of relief.</p><p>"Have I mentioned that your family's really cool?" Chat Noir said quietly, his eyes lingering on the trap door after he'd jumped up to the balcony and turned back towards her.</p><p>"Only about a dozen times this evening," Marinette said. "I don't know why you're saying it now, though. My mother was mad."</p><p>"Yeah, but she didn't punish you or anything. She didn't say I was a bad influence or that I couldn't come any more. She didn't even yell."</p><p>Marinette studied his face, wishing she could ask more about his home life. Wishing he could confide in her. Seeing the need for it in eyes tugged at her heart, like a thread pulling downwards.</p><p>"I guess I am lucky," she admitted. "You're welcome here whenever you want, though. My parents like you, and so do I, obviously."</p><p>His eyes narrowed playfully at that. "Enough to cheat by <em>kissing my neck?</em>"</p><p>"I was aiming for your cheek!" Marinette spluttered. She hoped Chat Noir couldn't see the blush warming her cheeks. She was beginning to regret that particular move.</p><p>"Right, because <em>that's</em> much better."</p><p>"We've kissed each others' cheeks before, to say hello," she insisted, blinking innocently at him.</p><p>"That's very different and you know it," he said, and she rolled her eyes.</p><p>"Come on, how different could it possibly be?"</p><p>Chat Noir's eyes narrowed just slightly as a spark of something impish and wild lit them up like green flames, and then he was swooping in close, <em>too</em> <em>close</em>, stopping just short of her cheek, the tip of his nose tickling the skin next to her ear, warm breath raising the tiny hairs on her face as he purred: "This different," and brushed the apple of her cheek softly with his lips before bounding away, cackling. He turned on the balcony railing to see her reaction and grinned, showing far too many teeth.</p><p>Marinette's brain took a moment to catch up with him, and she struggled to breathe properly as her heart hammered in her chest. Her skin tingled where he'd kissed her, and if he hadn't seen her blush before, she had no doubt that he was seeing it now.</p><p>She gawked at him for several seconds, trying to make her mouth form words.</p><p>"Y-<em>YOU-!</em>"</p><p>"Revenge is sweet, Princess!" he sang, and he blew her one last kiss before leaping away, his laughter echoing as he bounded over the rooftops and out of sight.</p><p>Marinette stood watching the place where he'd disappeared for several moments, trying to gather her wits. How <em>dare</em> he turn her own trick against her! She was going to get him back next time, ooh she was going to... going to...</p><p>"I'm going to forget that ever happened," Marinette murmured, pulling the window closed and slipping into bed. Tikki stirred as she snuggled under the blankets, but didn't wake up. She couldn't really one-up him on this one. What would that even look like? Besides, she conceded somewhat grumpily – Chat Noir was right. The kiss was going too far, and the one he'd given her in return had served only to prove it to her.</p><p>At least he hadn't tried to kiss her neck. Marinette buried her head in her pillow and groaned, trying to shove that idea – and the disconcerting knot of emotions it brought with it – out of her mind. No, revenge was <em>not</em> worth it. Sometimes, losing was better.</p><p>Marinette walked into the kitchen at a quarter to six the next morning. After several small mishaps and one messy accident involving several bags of flour and a wet mop, Sabine took pity on her and sent her back to bed, where she finally – <em>finally</em> – dropped off to sleep.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Movie Night</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This was the chapter from HELL. I cut a whole bunch of fluff that was a tad too self-indulgent for a slow burn fic (don't worry, there's still plenty left) and there was even more introspection / thought spiralling in the first draft than there is in this one.</p><p>Oblivious dorks are oblivious.</p><p>EDIT: I forgot to mention some spoilers for Song Of The Sea, not too detailed though.</p><p>Check out the end notes for some Tikki shenanigans I had to cut out because I tried to include them all in one sentence.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Marinette was anxious. Chat Noir had been coming over every other night for three weeks, until five days ago. Then, suddenly, he's stopped.</p><p>It was partly her own fault. During their last interaction, in a fit of competitive insanity, she'd planted a kiss on his neck (she'd been aiming for his cheek!) in order to win at Miraculous Kart. Chat Noir had teasingly kissed <em>her</em> cheek in retaliation before he left, leaving Marinette a stuttering, red-faced mess. He'd seemed more than fine as he bounced away, cackling, but the more she thought about it, the more certain she became that he probably regretted the whole thing and she'd ruined the closeness they'd built up over the past month and he'd never come back and -</p><p>Marinette hadn't known how precious his company had become until she was suddenly deprived of it.</p><p>She stood on her balcony and fiddled with the large glass jar she'd filled with cookies, fingering the edge of the label she'd glued onto it using milk. It had taken her a good three hours to bake the cookies, wait for them to cool, pack as many as she could into the jar, write out the label ("For hungry kitties only") and browse lifehacks videos for a way to stick it on that didn't involve leaving the house to buy glue or tape. The distraction had been a good one, but now it was over, she was back to fretting again.</p><p>There <em>was</em> a more logical explaination – the details of which she knew frustratingly little about. He had left a message on her bug phone saying he was too busy with his civilian job and couldn't patrol, with no indication of when he'd be back. The only times she'd seen him had been during akuma attacks, during which he'd seemed both distracted and somehow even more reckless and provocative than usual. She'd tried talking to him before he left, and a few times even during attacks, but all he'd given her was the same excuse about work.</p><p>"Chat Noir, if something's wrong, you can tell me!" she'd yelled during that morning's attack, crouching behind him and clutching her lucky charm (a pencil case) while he shielded her.</p><p>"I really can't, and it's fine M'lady, I'm just tired! Now could you <em>please</em> hurry up with that charm?" His voice had been exasperated and pleading, and she'd seen the tension bunched between his shoulderblades, and relented.</p><p>It didn't stop her from worrying about him, though. What kind of job was he doing? Was he in trouble for skipping out during akuma attacks? Should she get over her grief about losing the other heroes and start replacing them so he could catch a break, or would he think she was replacing <em>him</em> again?</p><p>And why hadn't he said anything to Marinette? He had to know she'd worry about him, surely?</p><p>On the other hand, maybe he didn't know that. It wasn't like Chat Noir and Marinette had an agreement or anything. He just turned up, and she let him in, like a stray cat with a sweet tooth.</p><p>(Cats, she had discovered while trawling the Internet for clues about his behaviour, couldn't taste sugar. Apparently Chat Noir's sweet tooth was an entirely human trait.)</p><p>"It's probably nothing, Marinette," Tikki's high voice pulled her out of her tangled thoughts. "He said it was something to do with work. He probably can't give you details because it might reveal his identity."</p><p>Marinette sighed, finally taking her hands off the cookie jar and stepping forward to lean on the balcony railing. The sky was a deep, hot blue to her right, with dark storm clouds building up on the left. The wind whipped her hair, warm and humid, and Marinette hoped the rain wouldn't wash out the label on the cookie jar.</p><p>"I know, Tikki," she said, her voice heavy. "I don't even know why I'm so worried. I guess I'm just going crazy because he's been my only company for nearly a month and now he's gone."</p><p>"He's not gone forever," said Tikki. "And besides, school starts next week. You'll no longer be grounded, and you'll be able to see all your friends again!"</p><p>Marinette smiled at that. "I can't believe I'm looking forward to school so much," she admitted.</p><p>"I can believe it, after you being grounded for a month. <em>I'm</em> looking forward to it!" Tikki said, smiling at her. "Speaking of friends, isn't it time for your movie date with Adrien?"</p><p>The kwami's gaze was far too innocent all of a sudden.</p><p>Marinette rolled her eyes. "It's not a date, Tikki. He asked <em>all</em> of us to watch a movie with him, it just so happens I'm the only one who was free."</p><p>"It's still just the two of you," Tikki insisted. It occurred to Marinette that Tikki and Rose would get along very well.</p><p>"I'm trying to get over him, Tikki," she pointed out as she headed back down to her bedroom. She opened the group chat to their earlier conversation and re-read it, smiling at Adrien's enthusiasm:</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Adrien</b>
  <span>: HEY MY EVENING PHOTOSHOOT JUST GOT CANCELLED!! Anyone wanna watch a movie with me tonight after 8:30??</span>
</p><p>
  <b>DjNino</b>
  <span>: We're all banned from your house dude</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Adrien</b>
  <span>: I meant like we all start the movie at the same time and call or message each other through here</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Bloggerbabe: </b>
  <span>Sorry Adrien, Nino and I are about to see Nightmare Underwear VI! We'll let you know if it's worth the hype ;)</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Marinouille</b>
  <span>: Please no details x(</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Bloggerbabe</b>
  <span>: &gt;:)</span>
</p><p>
  <b>DjNino</b>
  <span>: ALYA BE NICE</span>
</p><p>
  <b>DjNino</b>
  <span>: You sure you can't get away bro?</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Adrien</b>
  <span>: Nope :(</span>
</p><p>
  <b>DjNino</b>
  <span>: Your dad still watching over you like a Hawkmoth?</span>
</p><p>
  <b>DjNino</b>
  <span>: Hawk*</span>
</p><p>
  <b>DjNino</b>
  <span>: Unless autocorrect is trying to tell me st idk</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Adrien</b>
  <span>: That's terrifying man, don't even joke about that</span>
</p><p>
  <b>DjNino</b>
  <span>: Haha sry</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Bloggerbabe</b>
  <span>: Nino put your phone away, it's starting</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Marinouille</b>
  <span>: I can watch something with you, as long as it's not a horror movie.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Adrien</b>
  <span>: Awesome, thanks Marinette! What do you want to watch?</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Bloggerbabe</b>
  <span>: If you're going to watch a movie together, could you not spam the group chat please? We're still in the cinema and I need to keep my phone on vibrate in case there's an akuma alert. ;)</span>
</p><p>
  <b>DjNino</b>
  <span>: No you don't babe</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Adrien</b>
  <span>: Of course, sorry you guys!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>Marinette and Adrien had continued the conversation between themselves, settling on a pretty animated movie called Song Of The Sea. Marinette had already seen it with Luka, but she wanted to watch again so she could pay more attention to the animation and maybe doodle some designs. She'd been surprised when Adrien had said that Nino recommended it to him. She hadn't known Nino was into independant movies all that much.</p><p>It was time. Marinette grabbed her tablet and sketchbook and climbed up to her bed. The sky above her window was dark now, though the furniture she could see was still bathed in evening sunlight, making everything look slightly surreal. A few raindrops splattered across the glass. She couldn't help but peek out towards the table where the cookie jar sat waiting, exactly where she'd left it.</p><p>She sighed, found the movie on her tablet, and picked up her phone.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Marinouille</b>
  <span>: I'm ready when you are!</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Adrien</b>
  <span>: Yes! Let's do this :)</span>
</p><p>
  <b>Adrien is calling...</b>
</p><p> </p><p>"Gah! Tikki! Help!" Marinette cried. "I forgot we said we'd call each other!"</p><p>"It's fine, Marinette," Tikki soothed her. "You've done this with Alya before, just answer."</p><p>Marinette let out a breath and answered. Luckily, he hadn't enabled video chat. She wasn't sure she could have handled that.</p><p>"H-hello?"</p><p>"Hey Marinette! You ready to press play?"</p><p>Marinette relaxed a little. Tikki was right, this was just the same as with Alya.</p><p>"Yep, shall we go on three?"</p><p>"Ok, one... two..."</p><p>The movie started, and Marinette forgot her nerves as the beautiful animation filled her screen. She put her phone down next to her to settle on her belly, pencil in hand, and propped her tablet up against her cat pillow.</p><p>"Oh, the song's in Gaelic!" she heard Adrien exclaim, and she frowned in confusion for a second before answering.</p><p>"Are you watching in English?"</p><p>"Of course, aren't you?"</p><p>Marinette laughed. "I wouldn't understand a word of it."</p><p>"That's what subtitles are for!"</p><p>"But then I'd be too busy reading them instead of looking at all the pretty patterns," Marinette pointed out, already doodling on her pad. She was rewarded with a laugh.</p><p>"That's true," he conceded.</p><p>They settled into the movie, commenting on the colours and the music, until Adrien suddenly fell silent only a few minutes in. The main character's mother had just vanished, and Marinette realized with dawning horror that she should have warned him about that.</p><p>"Adrien? You still there?" she asked. "Do you want to stop the movie?"</p><p>It took him a second too long to reply.</p><p>"Uh, yeah! Sorry, I..." His voice almost normal. "Um, I'm really sorry Marinette, but Nathalie just came in and told me to switch off for the night. I'd be happy to watch a movie with you some other night, though!"</p><p>"Sure," she said, wracking her brain for something comforting to say and coming up dry. "I'm so sorry Adrien, I didn't think to warn you -"</p><p>"I'm fine, Marinette." It sounded like a lie he was used to telling. "Um, maybe a Disney next time? You like Tangled, right? I mean, who doesn't?"</p><p>"I've never seen it, actually," she admitted.</p><p>"What! You have to see it, we're definitely watching it! Next time."</p><p>"Right," she said. "Goodnight, Adrien. And... feel free to call me back if you can't sleep or something. I'll be up for a while, anyway."</p><p>There was a pause, and Marinette wondered if that was too far. She and Adrien had gotten closer lately, but she wasn't his girlfriend. He'd turn to Kagami or Nino for comfort before he even thought of her.</p><p>When Adrien spoke again, however, his voice was soft with affection.</p><p>"Thanks, Marinette. You're a really good person, you know that?"</p><p>Marinette swallowed a nervous giggle. "Um, thanks," she said.</p><p>"Goodnight, Marinette."</p><p>"'Night, Adrien."</p><p>
  <span>The conversation ended. Marinette paused the movie to bury her head in her hands and stayed like that for several minutes, trying not to let her thoughts spiral out of control. It was almost impossible. What had she been thinking? What had </span>
  <em>
    <span>Nino</span>
  </em>
  <span> been thinking? How could he not have known that a movie with a missing mother and a distant father might </span>
  <em>
    <span>possibly</span>
  </em>
  <span> be triggering to Adrien? She resolved to chew him out next time she saw him. Or now, maybe.</span>
</p><p>"Don't, Marinette," Tikki warned her as she opened her messages. "You're angry and worried. You might say something you'll regret!"</p><p>"He should know what happened so he can apologize to Adrien," Marinette said, scowling.</p><p>"Are you sure that's what Adrien needs right now? Because Nino is definitely going to panic and call Adrien if you tell him what happened." Tikki looked up at her with wide eyes, and Marinette sighed.</p><p>"You're right. I guess I should trust Adrien to call Nino himself if- WAAAH!"</p><p>The sound of something crashing into her skylight had her jumping half out of her skin, and she spun to see a large, black form scrambling upright. Huge green eyes stared in at her as her heart hammered to the beat of the rain outside.</p><p>"Chat Noir?!"</p><p>
  <em>He came back!</em>
</p><p>She surged up towards the window, motioning for him to get off it so she could open it for him, and yanked him inside before too much rain could get in. It didn't make much difference; he was already soaked.</p><p>"Marinette!" he cried, engulfing her in a hug before she could protest. She gripped his arms, about to push him away, before she realized he was trembling. "I missed you!" he cooed.</p><p>"Chat, you're freezing! Let me get you a towel," she said, shivering as the water from his suit and hair soaked into her pyjamas.</p><p>He pulled back hastily, face contrite. "I'm sorry! I didn't think – oh no, I'm getting your bed all wet! I'll, I'll-"</p><p>"Come down here," she said, squeezing his arm as she led the way down the ladder. Emotions and questions battled for attention in her mind, all the more anxious with the whiplash from worrying about Adrien. Marinette swallowed all of them: she didn't want to scare him away. Something was off about him, and she couldn't tell how serious it was yet. Maybe he was just tired, she told herself.</p><p>Still, she rushed to the bathroom to bring him a warm towel, then ordered him to stay put while she went back down and prepared some hot chocolate for the first time in months. She let her mother know he was there, speculating that he'd probably been on patrol (i.e. – showing off to civilians) and gotten caught in the storm. Sabine had nodded understandingly and suggested she bring up some snacks as well.</p><p>When Marinette returned with a tray of hot chocolate and leftover macarons, she found Chat Noir standing stock still in the middle of the room, looking at his feet, where a small puddle was forming. He brightened as soon as he saw her, but not before she spotted the look on his face. He looked... vulnerable.</p><p>"Ladybug told me you were busy with work," she said, setting the tray down before hurrying over to him. "I wish you'd told me yourself, I was worried." She tried to say it casually, but he must have seen the hurt in her expression because his eyes widened in dismay.</p><p>
  <span>"I'm sorry," he said quickly, "I didn't... well, I was told last minute about having to work in the evenings, and it got really, </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> busy, and I didn't think you'd mind too much. I should've left you a note or something, now I think about it, but I just... I didn't. Think, that is," he added with a self-depricating smile. His hands were clenching and unclenching on the edges of the towel.</span>
</p><p>Marinette's heart twisted painfully. She couldn't stay mad at him, not when he was soaking wet and his ears were drooping like those of a lost kitten. She gently pulled the towel over his head to dry his hair.</p><p>"I'm just glad you're okay," she said with a small smile. "I thought..." she remembered the last time they'd seen each other, and decided not to mention it. "Well, anyway. It's nice to see you again."</p><p>"Really?" he said, looking at her, eyes still wide. She paused and stared back incredulously.</p><p>"Of course. You're my friend. Do you think I'd let just any superhero hang out in my room?"</p><p>His laugh was quiet, but his eyes shone with relief and happiness and something tender. She laughed with him and finished rubbing his hair dry, mussing his hair up more than was strictly necessary. He let her do it, uncomplaining.</p><p>"Were you watching something?" he asked.</p><p>Marinette let her hands fall away and sighed. "I was actually watching a movie with a friend over the phone, but he had to go suddenly. To be honest, I think the movie was triggering for him, and I feel stupid for not realizing that because I'd already seen it once."</p><p>Chat Noir's eyes widened slightly, and his expression flickered, becoming unreadable.</p><p>"You shouldn't feel stupid for that," he said. "Besides, knowing you, you definitely apologized, right?"</p><p>"I did," she sighed. "And he's not the type to even blame me at all, but I'm still worried about him. I thought about calling his best friend, but he didn't ask me to, so I guess I have to respect that he probably just wants to deal with it on his own."</p><p>Chat Noir's eyes became warm, and one of his hands emerged from the towel to squeeze her shoulder.</p><p>"I'm sure he'll be fine. You're a good friend, Marinette."</p><p>He smiled at her like he had utmost faith that she'd done the right thing, and somehow, Marinette found herself believing him. Knots of worry unravelled in her gut, and she smiled back at him gratefully.</p><p>"What were you watching, anyway?" Chat Noir asked her.</p><p>"It's a kids' movie. Song of the Sea. Do you want to watch it with me? It's a little sad. The mother disappears," she added, remembering that Adrien wasn't the only one of her friends who'd lost his mother.</p><p>"I'd love to," he said, looking pleased, as though this was why he'd come in the first place.</p><p>She handed him the tray so he could pass it up to her once she was on her bunk bed. She pushed the still-damp bed sheets out of the way and lay the towel over her cat pillow, motioning for him to sit against it. Then she wriggled in next to him, pulled the covers over their legs, and propped the tablet over her bent knees. With their hot chocolate in hand and the macarons in Chat Noir's lap, they were ready to watch the movie.</p><p>She noticed him tense up at the end of the introduction and glanced over at him. His eyes were wide, locked on the screen, but she couldn't tell if he was upset or just fascinated.</p><p>"You sure you're okay with this? We can watch something else." She reached over to touch his forearm, and he immediately grabbed her hand, interlacing their fingers and shaking his head vigourously. She squeezed his hand and he squeezed back, snuggling closer to her side. Marinette smiled and lay her head on his shoulder. She hadn't felt this comfortable in days.</p><p>Chat Noir didn't say a word throughout the entire film, but Marinette felt as though they'd had an entire conversation. His hand squeezed hers during the tense moments, he chuckled appreciatively during the funny bits, and he leaned against her during the sad and touching parts. Halfway through the film, Marinette realized he'd somehow slipped downwards so that <em>his</em> head was on <em>her</em> shoulder. It almost felt like watching a movie with one of the children she babysat, and she eyed him with amusement, almost expecting to see him suck his thumb.</p><p>The end of the movie hit both of them hard, and Marinette couldn't help the sob that escaped her when Ben's mother returned.</p><p>"Are you crying?" Chat Noir croaked. He'd somehow managed to sneak under her arm without her noticing, and was sniffling next to her collarbone.</p><p>"Like you're not!" Marinette retorted with a wobbly laugh.</p><p>He craned his neck to look at up her, his eyes shining with amusement and defiance and tears.</p><p>"Who could be so heartless as to not cry at this part?" he demanded before she could tease him back. Marinette giggled, a few tears rolling down her cheeks as she squeezed her eyes shut.</p><p>"Yeah," she said, letting Chat Noir wipe her eyes with the sleeve of his suit. It wasn't very absorbent, so Marinette wiped both of their cheeks with her sleeve instead and booped his nose while she was at it. He wrinkled it comically, then snuggled back into her chest and squeezed her tight while they watched the rest of the movie. Marinette couldn't tell if he was trying to comfort her or the other way round, and really, they were both too busy crying over fictional characters to care.</p><p>The credits rolled, Marinette's heart sank like a stone. It was nighttime now and the storm was over. Chat Noir would be leaving soon, and if he didn't, she was supposed to kick him out.</p><p>She didn't move, and neither did he. He'd curled his legs under hers, and his free hand was intertwined with hers on her stomach. Marinette had no idea how they'd ended up so entangled, but it was incredibly comfortable and she didn't want to move.</p><p>The screen faded to black, the silence broken only by slow breaths and steady heartbeats, and a low, quiet purr. Marinette craned her neck to the side, trying to see his expression, but he reacted by nuzzling into her even more, his purr picking up a little.</p><p><em>He's definitely doing that on purpose,</em> she thought wryly.</p><p>"Chat?" she murmured. He groaned and nuzzled her again, tightening his grip on her. His purr puttered out as he tensed slightly, and she missed it.</p><p>
  <em>One more movie can't hurt, right?</em>
</p><p>"Wanna watch another movie?"</p><p>He nodded vigorously. "Let's watch Tangled now," he said.</p><p>Marinette raised her eyebrows. "You're the second person who's recommended that movie today. I guess it must be good."</p><p>She took the sudden stiffness in his arms to mean that he thought she might refuse. Sure enough, when she unlaced their fingers and tapped the screen to find Tangled, he relaxed back into her quickly, and his purr picked up once more. Marinette rested her cheek on top of his hair. It was finally dry, but it still smelled like Parisian rain over the scent of his expensive shampoo. Her last coherent thought was that the scent reminded her of someone else, but she couldn't think who.</p><p>*</p><p>She was awoken the next morning by Chat Noir burying his face in her neck, and immediately panicked: what time was it? What would her parents say if they found him here?! Her hand patted the bed frantically until she found her phone, ignoring Chat Noir's whine of protest, and after peering at it for several seconds, she breathed a sigh of relief. It was 6:47 and a Sunday. Her parents always let her sleep in on Sundays.</p><p>Marinette relaxed and took stock of their position. She was lying on her side, one arm and one leg flung protectively over Chat Noir, while her other arm lay slightly numb beneath his waist. One of his arms was wrapped around her, claws gently grazing the skin on her back where her top had ridden up a little. The sunlight he was attempting to block out turned his hair to spun gold, reflected in the motes of sparkling dust that floated in the sunbeam above his head. She couldn't help the fond smile that tugged at the corners of her lips. Marinette was not a morning person, but being woken by a cuddly overgrown kitty was definitely a mood-booster.</p><p>She threaded her fingers through his hair, scratching gently behind his ears.</p><p>"Time for you to go home, Kitty," she murmured. He groaned and shook his head, his hair tickling her jaw. "Aren't your family going to worry?" she insisted.</p><p>For a second, he was completely still.</p><p>Then he leapt up with a gasp, eyes wide with panic, and Marinette just had time to slap her hand across his mouth before he could shout and alert her parents.</p><p>"It's twenty to seven," she said quietly, anticipating his question. "What time did you need to be home for?"</p><p>"Six!" he whisper-screamed, hands clawing at his hair.</p><p>Marinette jumped up and quickly unlocked the window, and he leaped through it before she'd even opened it fully.</p><p>"GottagothanksMarinettebyeee!" he called in a rush, scampering across the rooftops without once looking back.</p><p>Marinette watched him go, smiling, until she caught sight of the cookie jar. It sat on the table, untouched. A quick check assured her that no water had gotten inside. She took one and bit into it, handing another to Tikki, who had floated up as though summoned by the smell of baked goods.</p><p>"I can't believe he didn't even notice it," Marinette grumbled.</p><p>Tikki giggled through a mouthful of cookie. "You know he doesn't come here for the cookies, Marinette."</p><p>Marinette didn't answer that. She didn't want to think about what Chat Noir did come here for. If she started overanalysing their friendship, she'd make it awkward and ruin everything. Things were fine the way they were.</p><p>"I just wish I knew when she'd see him again," she said.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Outtakes: Tikki shenanigans</p><p>"Marinette fiddled with the lid of the large glass jar she'd filled with cookies, fingering the edge of the label she'd glued on it using milk. Tikki had built an small but impressive castle for herself using all of Marinette's post-it notes, and Marinette hadn't wanted to risk breaking it by taking one. It had taken a good three hours to bake the cookies, pack as many as she could into the jar, write out the label ("For hungry kitties only") and browse lifehacks videos for a way to stick it on that didn't involve leaving the house to buy glue (Tikki had been using her glue to slowly build what she claimed was going to be a sculpture of Marinette) or tape (Marinette had no idea where the tape had gone. Tikki, when asked, had said "I'm the kwami of creation, Marinette! I can't just not create!")."</p><p>Tikki gets bored too, okay?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Shenanigans</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Chat Noir and Marinette go on a date while constantly denying that it's a date. I love my oblivious children.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Chat Noir didn't usually come over two nights in a row, but after the way he'd left early that morning, Marinette was relieved to see him show up again.</p><p>"Did you get in trouble?" she asked without preamble.</p><p>He grinned. "Way less trouble than I could have. Luckily my father's out on a business trip, so it's just me and my bo- um... babysitter?” Marinette raised an eyebrow. “The guy who takes care of me when my father's out on business trips."</p><p>Marinette frowned curiously. "Your step-dad? Other dad?”</p><p>“Ye-no, not, we’re not related at all.”</p><p>
  <span>Marinette shrugged. “I wouldn't know. My parents usually trust me to fend for myself. But,” she added with a half-smile, “I guess leaving a sneaky kitty alone in the house </span>
  <em>would</em>
  <span> be risky."</span>
</p><p>“<span>Well ex-</span><em>cuuuse</em><span> me, Princess,” Chat Noir said, one hand on his chest in mock offense, “it’s not my f-</span><em>mmf!</em><span>” he glared at Marinette over the cookie she’d stuffed in his mouth.</span></p><p>“You forgot your cookies this morning, by the way,” she said, blinking up at him with casual innocence as he tried to scowl at her and chew at the same time. He grunted indignantly, finger raised as though to argue, but it wilted as his eyes fluttered shut in momentary bliss.</p><p>“<span>Omg’d these’re really good.” He swallowed. “As I was saying before I was </span><em>rudely</em><span> inter- wait, my cookies?” His eyes grew wide as he glanced down at the jar.</span></p><p>“Yup,” Marinette said, picking one out to nibble on. She continued speaking around a mouthful of crumbs. “I made these yesterday and put a label on saying they were for you, you know, since I was kinda worried about you, and I figured if you happened to be passing you’d see them and take them, and that way even if you didn’t knock on the window, at least I’d know you were okay. But then you showed up in the middle of the storm, and I forgot to tell you about them…” she trailed off, glancing away with another awkward shrug.</p><p>“You made all those just for me?” he asked in an reverent murmur.</p><p>She nodded, but he didn’t respond. She stood there, turning slowly from side to side on the ball of one foot, thumbs in her pockets, as she swallowed the rest of her cookie. She snuck a glance at him from beneath her eyelashes and had to look away again immediately, squirming a little under the warmth of his gaze.</p><p>“<span>Uh, yeah,” Marinette said after a while. She cleared her throat and raised an eyebrow at him. “Well I </span><em>did</em><span>, but you didn’t even see them last night, so I guess maybe you don’t want them…?” </span></p><p>Chat Noir’s eyes grew even wider as he immediately clasped his hands together and gazed at her imploringly.</p><p>“I’m sorry I didn’t notice them before, can I have them now? Please? Pretty please?”</p><p>A smirk tugged at one corner of her lips, and she tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I dunnooo…”</p><p>“<em>Marineeette,</em><span>” he whined, shuffling forward in tiny steps. </span></p><p>
  <span>Marinette’s eyebrows rose higher. Chat Noir pushed out his bottom lip, but her smirk only grew, so he grabbed her hands and pressed them against the sides of his face. “C’mooon, don’t be heartless! How can you </span>
  <em>paw</em>
  <span>-sibly resist this adorable kitty face?”</span>
</p><p>“I do a lot of babysitting,” Marinette said, pinching his cheeks a little and grinning. “I’m immune to babydoll eyes now.”</p><p>“What about kitty eyes?”</p><p>“Those too.” Her grin faltered as something about his eyes caught her attention. “Hey, are you… can you control the size of your pupils?” she asked incredulously, tilting her head in order to see them better in orange sunset.</p><p>Chat Noir blinked, the aforementioned pupils returning to a more normal size as his expression morphed from exaggerated pleading to surprise. “I… don’t think so?”</p><p>Marinette’s eyes narrowed as she leaned even closer. “Do it again,” she said. He obeyed with surprisingly little resistance, his expression morphing back into that of a kicked kitten with impressive speed. Sure enough, his pupils became completely round, and so big they almost looked like irises.</p><p>“Oh wow,” she murmured, brushing the hair out of his eyes with her thumbs to get a better look. “I guess you do have some kind of control over them, even if it’s subconscious. Is that a miraculous thing, or… well I guess you couldn’t do it without the costume, could you?”</p><p>“Uh,” said Chat Noir eloquently. Marinette noticed that while his pupils were still huge, his pleading pout was gone. She was wondering if she was imagining the sudden heat beneath her hands, when it occurred to her that she was holding his face very, very close to hers.</p><p>She jerked away and fell backwards into her deck chair.</p><p>Chat Noir gaped for a second, then burst out laughing. Marinette scowled at him over a furious blush.</p><p>“Are you okay?” he asked between giggles, offering her a hand up.</p><p>“Fine,” Marinette grumbled as she allowed him to pull her upright again.</p><p>“Good,” he said, grinning, “because I thought you were falling for me for a second there.”</p><p>Marinette glared at him. “You’re the one who made it awkward! I don’t think you deserve those cookies after all.”</p><p>“<span>Oh nooo,” he whined even as he kept laughing, “</span><em>Eye</em><span>’m sorry, </span><em>eye</em><span> won’t tease you any more. </span><em>Eye</em> <em>paw</em><span>-mise.”</span></p><p>“<span>Don’t make </span><em>paw</em><span>-mises you can’t keep,” Marinette retorted, deadpan.</span></p><p>“Hm, I guess you’re right about that. Oh, I know! I’ll get you something, too! Let’s go get a crêpe or some ice cream! My treat.” He bounded to the balcony railing and spun on top of it, holding a hand out to her with an exaggerated bow.</p><p>Marinette blinked. “Uh - now?” she asked, glancing between him and her skylight. “I don’t - I mean, I’d love to, but… it’s past 9pm? And my parents…”</p><p>
  <em>Are already in bed,</em>
  <span> said a tempting voice in her mind. She slipped out regularly to fight akumas, after all. She’d done it yesterday, in fact, during the day. Now her parents also thought she needed constipation medicine.</span>
</p><p>Chat waited.</p><p>“I guess a little outing couldn’t hurt,” Marinette said eventually. “Just let me get my outdoor shoes and purse.”</p><p>—</p><p>Marinette knew from experience that the most practical way to carry a civilian was one-handed; pulling them to close to her side, over her shoulder, or on her back if they had good grip. Yet, Chat Noir insisted on carrying her in what he called a “Purr-incess carry”, hugging her close to his chest.</p><p>“This way I know you won’t fall,” he said when she’d asked.</p><p>
  <span>She rolled her eyes goodnaturedly, and didn’t press the issue. It </span>
  <em>was</em>
  <span> a nice way to be carried.</span>
</p><p>They decided to stop at the first open snack place they found, which happened to be André’s ice cream cart, next to the fountain on the Place de Châtelet.</p><p>“Good evening, young lovebirds! What will it be?” André greeted them.</p><p>Marinette and Chat Noir opened their mouths simultaneously to object to the term ‘lovebirds’, then stopped, remembering the last time Marinette had gone against André’s crackpot love theories. They exchanged a glance and snapped their mouths shut again in perfect unison.</p><p>“Hmmm,” André’s eyes narrowed as he regarded the pair. Then - “Ah!” - they eyes popped open, one finger raised in sudden epiphany. “A beautiful friendship is also part of a beautiful relationship! As refreshing as peppermint, as sweet as strawberry!” He handed the ice cream cone to Marinette, who wondered if it would be rude to ask for a separate one for Chat, but he was already paying.</p><p>They circled the fountain and sat on the other side of it, where André’s extravagant declarations were just barely audible.</p><p>“You think he’s capable of accepting that two people getting ice cream together could just be friends?” Chat wondered out loud.</p><p>“Let’s not test him,” Marinette said, digging into her ice cream. The peppermint and the strawberry did go surprisingly well together. She offered the second spoon to Chat so he could try it, too. “I don’t even think he can accept that about groups. Once I asked him to make a cone with three flavours for me and two of my friends, and he said too many flavours at once would ‘upset the delicate balance’.”</p><p>She immediately regretted bringing up that memory, and grimaced as she tried to shut it out. It took her a moment to realize that Chat had not replied. She glanced sidelong at him to find him sitting frozen with his spoon halfway to his mouth, frowning into space as ice cream dripped off the end of it.</p><p>“Uh… you okay?”</p><p>He turned to her suddenly, indignance and anguish warring beneath his mask. “Is that why-” he began, then stopped, pressing his lips into a thin line and turning away again. “That’s so stupid,” he muttered angrily to the ground.</p><p>“It’s fine, Chat,” Marinette said, baffled by the intensity his reaction. “It’s not the end of the world, right?”</p><p>Her lopsided smile faded when he turned back to her again, eyes filled with sorrow. He opened his mouth and then closed it, glancing down with a huff. Curiosity tickled at the back of her mind, but she knew better than to ask. She recognized that look: it was one she sometimes saw as Ladybug, when they were dancing around personal details, trying to confide in each without giving too much away. Like he desperately wanted to say something, but couldn’t. It weighed on her heart, but there was nothing she could do about it without compromising their secret identities.</p><p>Marinette took a deep breath, but she couldn’t find anything to say. If she asked if he was okay again, he might give away too much by accident. And she had a feeling that playing it off as not a big deal wouldn’t work either. Obviously this had hit a nerve with him.</p><p>So she did the next best thing: distraction. Grabbing the hand that held his still-dripping spoon, Marinette licked the remaining ice cream off it, then let it go as though nothing had happened.</p><p>Chat Noir blinked several times, his eyes darting from Marinette to the spoon.</p><p>“You were wasting ice cream,” she said around her own spoon, jerking an elbow towards the drips decorating the concrete between his feet.</p><p>It worked. He turned back to her, eyes sparkling suddenly. Marinette saw the gleam of mischief and just had time to tense up before he wrapped his hand around the one she was using to hold the ice cream, and took a huge lick.</p><p>Marinette’s jaw dropped. Chat Noir grinned.</p><p>“<span>That was </span><em>uncalled for!</em><span>” she sputtered.</span></p><p>“You started it!”</p><p>“<span>I - ooh, Mister, you are </span><em>asking for it!</em><span>” Marinette shoved the ice cream towards his face, aiming for his nose, but he yelped and tried to dodge, and she got it on his cheek and hair instead.</span></p><p>“Hey!” he laughed, pushing it back towards her. They wrestled for a moment, but Marinette was no match without her miraculous suit on, and Chat managed to boop her nose with the ice cream. She gasped at the cold, then had an idea. Smirking up at Chat, she opened her mouth wide and bit off as much ice cream as she could.</p><p>For a few glorious seconds, Marinette watched Chat Noir’s expression fall from triumph to indignant shock. She’d taken off all that was left of the strawberry and about half of the peppermint.</p><p>Then her senses caught up to her.</p><p>“MGMMM!!!” Marinette squealed, nearly dropping the ice cream. Chat Noir managed to catch it just in time while Marinette’s hands flapped uselessly next to her face, eyes squeezed shut in pain.</p><p>“Brain freeze?” Chat Noir asked, barely holding back giggles.</p><p>“Mm-MM!!!” She whacked his shoulder with the back of her hand and he burst out laughing.</p><p>“Push your - your tongue - against the roof of your mouth,” he suggested, gasping. Marinette glared at him, pointing angrily at her cheeks, stuffed with too much ice cream to do what he’d said. Chat Noir doubled over, wheezing and clutching his stomach. Marinette shoved him weakly, pinching the bridge of her nose with her other hand.</p><p>“Haaah”, she sighed once she’d managed to swallow the ice cream. It had taken several tries, and now her stomach was protesting as well as her head. “That was… a mistake.”</p><p>“You don’t say,” snorted Chat Noir through a much more reasonable mouthful of peppermint.</p><p>“Shut up,” she grumbled. “You were no help at all!”</p><p>“Hey, don’t blame me, this was your crazy idea,” he said, still grinning. Marinette stuck her tongue out at him. Then, remembering the ice cream on the tip of her nose, she stuck her tongue out and managed to lick a bit of it off.</p><p>Chat’s eyes widened. “You just licked your own nose!”</p><p>“It’s one of my many hidden talents,” Marinette said airily, taking out a handkerchief to wipe off the rest.</p><p>“Even I can’t do that, and I’m a cat,” he said with a pout. She took the empty ice cream cone from him - he didn’t seem to want it - and pointed it towards his sticky locks before biting into it.</p><p>“Sorry about your hair.”</p><p>“Oh, right,” said Chat. Then, to her horror, he scooped up a handful of fountain water from behind him and splashed it onto the side of his face, rubbing it into his hair.</p><p>“Hey, no!” Marinette smacked his hand away, wiping the fountain water off his face with her handkerchief.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“That water is dirty! You can’t wash with that!”</p><p>“Well I don’t see any other water around here. Unless you’re offering to let me use your shower.” Chat grinned at her, and she almost pushed him away by the nose, switching her aim to his forehead at the last second.</p><p>“My parents would hear you, silly cat,” she said, glancing around. “I’m sure we could find someplace else. A public bathroom, or-”</p><p>“Oh!” Chat sprang to his feet and pulled her up excitedly. “I know the perfect place!”</p><p>“What? Really?”</p><p>“Yeah! Free water, soap - and way cleaner than a public bathroom.” He was already scooping her up, getting ready to jump. Marinette’s arms settled around his neck even as she frowned.</p><p>“This isn’t going to be illegal or anything, is it?” she asked as he leapt up to the first rooftop.</p><p>“Mm, not exactly.”</p><p>—</p><p>“Chat, this is definitely illegal.”</p><p>They were standing on the rooftop terrace of the Grand Paris hotel. The only light was coming from the pool, and they were skirting it carefully, going the long way round to avoid triggering the motion detector lights next to the lift.</p><p>“Don’t worry, I know the owner,” said Chat, far too smugly.</p><p>“So do I, and I doubt Chloe would be happy to see me sneaking around up here!” Marinette hissed.</p><p>Chat paused, nearly causing Marinette to bump into him.</p><p>“Chloe’s in New York right now,” he said, quiet and serious all of a sudden. “I’m not sure she’ll even be coming back after… what happened.”</p><p>
  <em>New York?</em>
  <span> Marinette thought. No wonder she hadn’t been akumatized since Miracle Queen, despite the negative emotions her defeat must have left her with. </span>
  <em>At least she’s safe from Hawkmoth there.</em>
</p><p>
  <span>But Chat Noir’s words had opened a Pandora’s box of unanswered questions she’d buried beneath the tangled knot of her feelings for Luka. First of all, how did </span>
  <em>he</em>
  <span> know where Chloe was? Did he know her in real life, or had he checked up on her as Chat Noir? Maybe Ladybug should have been the one to check up on Chloe. Actually Ladybug definitely should have done that. But what would she have said? Chloe probably would have kicked her out.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>Still</em>
  <span>, Marinette chided herself. </span>
  <em>You could have at least tried</em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>“Hey!” Chat Noir hissed from the other side of the pool. He’d reached the bar and was already running the tap. “You okay there, Marinette?”</p><p>Marinette realized she’d stopped following him, and blinked. With the pool lights between them, he looked like a pair of glowing green eyes floating at the top of a dark, concerned-looking shadow.</p><p>“Oh,” she said, taking a step towards him. “Uh, yeah, I, um, hang on a second -”</p><p>“Marinette wait-!”</p><p>
  <em>SPLASH!</em>
</p><p>The shock of cold water almost numbed the pain of falling face-first into it. Thankfully, swimming with Alya had taught Marinette that sudden submersion could happen at any time, and as the water rose to meet her, her body, at least, reacted appropriately.</p><p>Chat Noir didn’t know that, though. As Marinette surfaced, flailing, she saw him already in the pool, swimming towards her.</p><p>“I’m okay,” she spluttered, treading water as she pushed sopping wet hair out of her eyes.</p><p>“You sure?”</p><p>She nodded, sending droplets everywhere, and blinked the last of them off her eyelashes. Relief chased the concern off his face. His hair clung to his head, swept backwards by his dive and looking even longer than usual. For once, he seemed unconcerned with being wet. He caught her arms just below the elbows and held them so that she could float without kicking. Marinette glanced down at their feet.</p><p>“You can stand here?” she asked incredulously.</p><p>He shrugged. “I am taller than you,” he remarked, one corner of his mouth curling into a lopsided smirk.</p><p>Marinette stretched her feet downwards as far as they would go, but she just ended up grazing his shins with her toes. She met his eyes again. It was strange, being on the same level for once. It felt closer. More intimate.</p><p>“You look the same height to me,” she teased, grinning over the blush she hoped wouldn’t show in the glow of the pool lights.</p><p>“I could dunk you, you know,” he retorted, leaning closer still. Their noses were almost touching.</p><p>“You would never,” Marinette said with certainty. “A superhero dunking a civilian? You’d have an unfair advantage. Chat Noir is too much of a gentleman. Or gentle-cat.” She grinned cheekily.</p><p>His eyes widened just a fraction before melting into something soft that made her heart stumble just a little. He let out a breathless laugh.</p><p>“Are you always this calm when you’ve just fallen into a pool?”</p><p>Marinette shrugged. “This is, like, the fourth time this has happened to me,” she admitted. “Once it was in the shallow end. That one hurt.”</p><p>“Oh,” he said, wincing in sympathy. “Okay. But, um,” he added, then stopped, glancing down between them and then away, suddenly awkward. Marinette watched a blush spill out from under his mask with surprise and fascination. Was she doing that to him? Her, Marinette? The thrill that ran down her spine set off alarm bells in her mind.</p><p>“<span>Did you always, uh, do you always have, um, clothes on? When this happens, I mean? Not that I think you shouldn’t! You should definitely, um, have clothes on, but maybe not </span><em>those</em><span> clothes - not that they’re b-bad or -”</span></p><p>But Marinette’s brain had finally kicked into gear at the mention of clothes, and whatever strange new feelings Chat Noir’s stammering had awoken in her were immediately replaced by panic.</p><p>“MY PURSE! TIK-mmf!”</p><p>Marinette’s yell was cut off by Chat’s hand over her mouth. He was staring past her, his pupils reduced to tiny slits in eyes so wide they were almost round, When he began pulling her towards the edge of the pool, hindering her search for Tikki, she thrashed in protest.</p><p>
  <em>Where is my purse?! And what is he doing! </em>
  <span>She thought, but before she had the chance to shove him away, the lift chimed open.</span>
</p><p>Marinette froze as Chat pulled her under the diving board and into a protective hold she was more used to experiencing as Ladybug. They stilled, listening.</p><p>
  <span>Footsteps skirted the pool and headed towards the bar, accompanied by the rattle of a glass-laden trolley. Marinette heard the hollow click of a cupboard being unlocked. More glass clinked as whoever it was went about their chores. It was taking longer than she’d anticipated, </span>
  <em>too</em>
  <span> long, she needed to find Tikki, she had to -</span>
</p><p>Something warm bumped the back of her neck and Marinette flinched, causing Chat to glance at her anxiously. Then Marinette felt two tiny paws patting her skin in reassurance, and nearly fainted with relief. Tikki gave her one last pat before disappearing again, probably to somewhere drier.</p><p>The chinking of glasses was replaced by the rush of the tap. Now that she was no longer panicking, Marinette began to shiver in earnest. She clenched her jaw so her teeth wouldn’t chatter. Chat Noir, already close enough that she could feel his heartbeat beneath her hands, hugged her closer still. She tensed reflexively, but he was surprisingly warm, and she found herself slowly melting into him.</p><p>
  <em>It’s fine, he’s just warming you up so you don’t give us away</em>
  <span>, she thought. Chat Noir loved Ladybug, after all. He’d assured her of that the day her father had gotten akumatized. Besides, they were close friends now - they’d woken up cuddling that very morning, just like she sometimes did with Alya. Platonic friends could be physically close without it being weird. And it didn’t feel weird. It felt natural.</span>
</p><p>Letting out a small sigh, Marinette tucked her nose against his cheek, just in front of his ear. The small gasp that escaped him was probably due to her cold contact against his skin, she told herself.</p><p>
  <span>They stayed like that for what felt like forever, though it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes. They didn’t move when the hotel employee rolled the trolley back into the lift and the doors closed with a soft </span>
  <em>ding,</em>
  <span> nor for several moments after. Marinette realized she didn’t </span>
  <em>want</em>
  <span> to move. Moving would mean getting out of the pool which, cool as it was, wasn’t as chilly as the night air. Chat Noir was warm, and her clothes, though wet, were floating pleasantly around her - except, that is, where she was pressed against him: chest to chest, cheek to cheek, his arms covering as much of her back as he could. He’d even trapped one of her legs between his knees in his effort to keep her warm. It was sweet.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>He’s sweet,</em>
  <span> a quiet, wistful voice whispered from the back of her mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>Of course he’s sweet, </em>
  <span>she retorted silently.</span>
  <em> He’s Chat Noir, hero of Paris. He’s always sweet, to everyone.</em>
</p><p>“Hey, you falling asleep there?”</p><p>His voice right next to her ear was quiet, but Marinette jumped anyway.</p><p>“Uh,” she said intelligently, and he chuckled, pulling away just enough to look at her. A few strands of his hair had fallen forward, framing his face. It was a lot darker when wet.</p><p>“Let’s get you out of this pool before you catch a cold,” he said with a smile, and she nodded, untangling her legs from his with a reluctance she refused to think about.</p><p>Her clothes clung to her skin as he pulled her onto the tiles, and she peeled off her cardigan to wring it out, shivering. Chat spotted her purse at the bottom of the pool, and dived back in to get it. Marinette resolutely ignored the whispers of the soft voice at the back of her mind.</p><p>“I think your phone is dead,” he said, grimacing as he handed the purse to her.</p><p>Marinette gasped. “My phone! Oh no oh no oh no…”</p><p>Chat Noir regarded her oddly at that, but she wasn’t paying attention. Sure enough, the phone was completely waterlogged.</p><p>“I heard you can leave it in rice overnight and it sometimes works then?” He suggested.</p><p>“Not after this long in the water,” she replied. “Believe me, I’ve dropped my phone more times than I can c-count.” She clenched her teeth and pulled her wet cardigan around her again, but it didn’t help much.</p><p>Chat Noir’s hands came up to rub her arms, and he glanced around as though looking for something. His face lit up with sudden inspiration. He darted off somewhere behind her, and returned a moment later with what looked like a table cloth, which he draped around her shoulders. It pooled at her feet, soaking up the puddle that had formed there.</p><p>“Chat, this is stealing. I can’t take this.”</p><p>“It’s not stealing if I return it later,” he countered, opening his arms to carry her again. She shuffled forward reluctantly.</p><p>“I’ll probably get it dirty.”</p><p>“That’s what the laundry service is for.”</p><p>He bundled her up in the table cloth, which was surprisingly thick and warm, and leapt away towards the bakery. Despite the extra protection, the wind cut into her like a knife, and Marinette was relieved when Chat Noir finally landed on the balcony and lowered her carefully to her feet. Her pumps squelched unpleasantly.</p><p>“I’m sorry you fell in the pool,” he said quietly, and she was surprised to see shame in his eyes.</p><p>“Wha- it’s not your fault!” Marinette protested. “I literally just walked into it!”</p><p>“Which you wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t taken us there in the first place.”</p><p>“You wouldn’t have had to take us there if I hadn’t gotten ice cream in your hair.”</p><p>He opened his mouth to protest, but she gave him a look, and he closed it with a sheepish smile.</p><p>“Okay, but I’m still buying you a new phone.”</p><p>Marinette’s jaw dropped, and then she scowled. “No way.”</p><p>“Please let me do this? It would make me feel better.”</p><p>The pleading look on his face almost convinced her, but Marinette had truly come a long way when it came to resisting baby doll eyes.</p><p>“<span>It wouldn’t make </span><em>me</em><span> feel better,” she insisted. His eyes went from pleading to dismayed before he dropped his gaze, tightening Marinette’s heartstrings like the pull of a needle. “Hey,” she said gently, reaching out to squeeze his arm, but the reassurances died on her lips when she felt how soggy his suit was. This was nothing compared to when he’d come over during the storm last night. “Hey, we need to get you inside,” she said in a different tone, turning to open her skylight.</span></p><p>“Oh, don’t worry about it, my clothes will still be dry when I transform back,” he said, but she grabbed his hand before he could move towards the railing.</p><p>“I bet it doesn’t prevent you from catching a cold, though, does it?” she said, eyeing him to see if he’d deny it.</p><p>“It’d still be quicker if I just went home,” he said.</p><p>He was right. He’d already made one journey in a soaking wet cat suit; any damage to his health was probably done already. Keeping him would only put off the time when he could transform back and be properly dry, while the temperature outside continued to descend as the night wore on.</p><p>Marinette wavered for a moment.</p><p>“<span>I mean,” he added hesitantly, “ it’s not that I don’t </span><em>want</em><span> to stay, because tonight was a lot of fun even if we did get wet, but I’m really soaked, and last night I kind of messed up your sheets with the rain and all and this is way worse than that, and even if it would be nice to get warm a little and maybe eat some cookies first, I’m sure you’re tired, and really you should take a shower now so you don’t get ill yourself, and I don’t want to impose on you or-”</span></p><p>“Kitty,” Marinette said, smiling wearily. “Just shut up and come in.”</p><p>The guilty relief in his he gave her only strengthened her resolve.</p><p>“<span><span>Okay,” he said quietly, and followed her inside.</span></span></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>SURPRISE! A Breath Of Fresh Air is no longer a bunch of connected one-shots, it actually has plot! Sort of! In the vaguest possible sense of the word! It's also no longer going to be just marichat, because soon they'll be going back to school, and you know what that means: ADRIENETTE :D</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. A series of mistakes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Directly following from the last chapter, Shenanigans, our heroes dry off after their unexpected dip in the pool. Welcome to 5,000 words of the most self-indulgent fluff I've ever written.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Marinette had to admit that this time, inviting Chat Noir inside might have been a mistake.</p><p>
  <span>In fact, this evening had really just been one mistake after another - although to be fair, errors had been committed by both parties. Walking into a pool fully clothed with Tikki and her phone in her purse had been Marinette’s mistake, but sneaking onto the roof of the Grand Paris was entirely on him. Of course, he wouldn’t have had to do that if Marinette hadn’t shoved ice cream into his hair, but then, </span>
  <em>he’d started it</em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p><span>In retrospect, her first mistake had been leaving the house with Chat Noir in the first place. A journalist might have seen them. Heck, a </span><em>fan</em><span> might have seen them. Maybe a fan </span><em>had</em><span> seen them. Maybe the Internet was blowing up right now with candid pictures of them eating André’s couples’ ice cream together before Chat Noir princess-carried her </span><em>towards a hotel </em><span>and</span> <span>oh jeez oh no her parents were totally going to ground her again and when school started in two days she’d be hounded by reporters and Chat Noir fangirls and Alya wouldn’t let her hear the end of it and Adrien would think she was in love with Chat Noir and </span><em>why was she thinking about Adrien when she was supposed to be with Luka?!</em></p><p>“Uh, Marinette? Are you okay?”</p><p>Marinette blinked and unclenched her hands. Somehow, she’d managed to wrinkle the towel she was wrapping around Chat Noir. It was the seventh one, not including the two he was sitting on, and at this point he looked like a giant pile of towels with a pair of big green cat eyes peering out of them.</p><p>The laughter that bubbled out of her throat was like a spell breaking, and the anxiety dissolved into reckless, helpless giggles. Chat Noir’s confused frown just made her laugh harder.</p><p>“Aren’t you afraid you’ll wake your parents?” he asked, and she clapped her hands over her mouth, muffled snickers escaping still.</p><p>“I’m sorry, you’re just - you’re kinda cute like that.”</p><p>Chat Noir glanced down at himself and pushed his bottom lip out in an exaggerated pout. Marinette poked it and he tried to nip her finger. She let out a sigh, relaxing again, and returned Chat Noir’s slightly bewildered smile with a reassuring one of her own. If there were rumours, they’d deal with them. And if her parents found out… well, she’d apologize. They’d forgive her eventually. The important thing was that Chat was here, and Tikki was safe - Marinette had seen her zip under her desk towards the miracle box as she’d come in. Here and now, her kitty needed warming up before he caught a cold.</p><p>“I’d let you use our shower but it really is late,” she said, smiling an apology.</p><p>Chat Noir shook his head, and the topmost towel fell to the floor.</p><p>“<span>I’d have to transform back to use it anyway, which would defeat the purpose, since I’d then have to transform </span><em>again</em><span> to leave the bathroom.”</span></p><p>“Wouldn’t your suit be dry if you did that?”</p><p>“Yes, but you’d have to feed my kwami first.”</p><p>Marinette experienced a moment of sudden panic.</p><p>“Oh,” she said, her voice too high all of a sudden. “And, uh, w-what is a kwami?”</p><p>It was his turn to laugh. “I know you know what a kwami is, Marinette. You detransformed in front of me after you saved mine and Ladybug’s from Kwamibuster, remember?”</p><p>The panic was smothered by a wave of embarrassment. “Oh, haha, yeah, that is true,” she said, fiddling self-consciously with her damp hair. “I do remember that.”</p><p>There was as much affection as amusement in his smile.</p><p>“You were so brave that day. You saved our butts! Ladybug and I would have been doomed without you. Hawkmoth would have won!”</p><p>“Well, it was all Ladybug’s plan.” Marinette shrugged uncomfortably.</p><p>“<span>Yeah, but </span><em>you</em><span> carried it out. You let yourself be caught by the akuma </span><em>and</em><span> you escaped with our kwamis. You were amazing, Marinette!”</span></p><p>Protests died on her tongue as his words flew past the logical part of her mind, straight to a cherished memory.</p><p>
  <em>You’re amazing, Marinette.</em>
</p><p>For one heart-stopping moment, Marinette looked at the head poking out of a pile of towels and saw Adrien’s golden hair, Adrien’s warm eyes, Adrien’s gentle smile.</p><p>“Marinette?” The gentle smile was turning into a concerned frown. “Are you okay? Did I break you?”</p><p>Marinette blinked. Who was she talking to? Chat Noir, or Adrien?</p><p>“Marineeette~” sang the boy in front of her. One booted foot emerged from beneath the towels to poke at her knee, and the gentle-smile-slash-frown turned into a leer. “Hey, you’re not falling for me again, are you?”</p><p>His smirk triggered some kind of reflex in her, and she snorted, hoping he couldn’t hear her heart’s attempts to escape her ribcage.</p><p>“<span>Don’t be silly,” she said, half to herself. </span><em>Stupid. He can’t be Adrien. They’re nothing alike!</em><span> She grabbed the towel that had fallen earlier, threw it his over his stupid, Adrien-ish head, and began drying his hair again, ignoring his muffled “hey!” She hoped he couldn’t feel her trembling.</span></p><p>“So, uh, what were you saying about your kwami?” She asked in a desperate attempt to hide the storm happening inside her chest.</p><p>“Nice change of subject,” Chat Noir remarked smugly from beneath the towel. “Having trouble taking compliments, Princess?”</p><p>“Hush, you,” she muttered, somewhat relieved that he wasn’t reading further into her odd reaction.</p><p>He chuckled. “Okay, okay. So, my kwami’s name is Plagg, and his thing is cheese.”</p><p>“Cheese?” Marinette repeated, as though she hadn’t heard this tirade a thousand times already.</p><p>“Cheese. And not just any cheese,” Chat Noir continued. “He likes camembert. The older and smellier, the better.”</p><p>“Isn’t your kwami supposed to be a cat?”</p><p>“Yes! He is supposed to be a cat, but for some reason, he likes mouse food!”</p><p>Marinette giggled. “At least he doesn’t like, y’know. Actual mice.”</p><p>“<span>Actually, that would probably make it a lot easier for me,” said Chat. “There are plenty of rats in Paris. He could just go out and </span><em>cat</em><span>-ch them himself.”</span></p><p>Marinette shot him a deadpan glare.</p><p>“Let’s not talk about the rats,” she said with a shudder, thinking of the ones she’d seen in the sewers. Some of them had been as big as cats.</p><p>“Really?” He peered up at her from under the towel. “I guess the mouse miraculous wouldn’t have been your first choice, then?”</p><p>“O-oh no, Mullo was very sweet!” Marinette stammered, suddenly aware that the miracle box with Mullo and the other kwamis in it was hidden behind a box under her desk, less than two meters away. “They ate a cookie I gave them. I don’t know if that’s their favourite food, but it’s what I had.”</p><p>“Seriously? That’s so not fair! Why did my kwami have to have an attitude problem?”</p><p>Marinette snorted, picking up the towel that had fallen to the floor as Chat Noir gesticulated.</p><p>“Can’t he hear you?” she asked, knowing the answer, as she pressed the towels into his suit.</p><p>“Oh, he can. He’ll probably steal all my left socks as revenge. Or leave an extra-gooey slice of camembert in my shoe.”</p><p>That made her laugh. She couldn’t imagine having a relationship like that with Tikki, but it sounded fun in its own way. Though it wasn’t like they never argued. Tikki like to make things out of small bits of junk, which meant that occasionally Marinette would find tiny pieces of modern art in her purse, or cluttering up her desk. Other times, when she was careless, she would sweep them away with the bits of thread and fabric after a project. Though since the miracle box was in her room now, Tikki had begun keeping her creations in there instead…</p><p>“Um,” said Chat.</p><p>Marinette blinked. While her mind had wandered, her hands had continued to press the towels against his suit, trying to squeeze the water out of the magical fabric. It wasn’t working very well, and apparently whichever part of her brain was in control of this process had decided it would be a good idea to stick her hand into the towels and feel her way across his chest and shoulder to his arm, so she could squeeze the suit directly. The problem, now she was focusing on it, was that she had just groped Chat Noir’s chest, and was now squeezing his bicep. Underneath the towels.</p><p>Chat Noir was glancing between Marinette’s face and the place under the towels where her hand was, a bright blush spilling out from under his mask.</p><p>“S-sorry!” Marinette squeaked, jerking her hand away as though she’d been burned. “I was trying to get the water out!”</p><p>“<span>Right! Of course!” he replied, pulling his other hand out of the towels to rub the back of his neck and once again looking</span><em> very much like Adrien -</em></p><p>
  <em>Don’t be silly. Chat Noir is not Adrien. That’s just the anxiety talking. Or wishful thinking. This is Chat, who steals your cookies and makes you pet his hair and teases you at every opportunity… usually.</em>
</p><p>
  <span>Having reassured herself that Chat Noir was </span>
  <em>not</em>
  <span> Adrien, Marinette frowned.</span>
</p><p>“Are you feeling okay?” she asked, tilting her head to peer into his eyes for signs of a fever. They didn’t seem any shinier than usual, but his pupils was large in the lamplight. His cheeks were very red.</p><p>“Y-yeah! Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked with a short, awkward laugh.</p><p>“Well, usually you’d tease me in a situation like that,” she said.</p><p>“I guess I’m just tired,” he said, giving her a half-smile that made her heart swell with something warm and protective. It did seem plausible, after their many adventures that evening.</p><p>She touched the back of her hand to his forehead. “You do feel a bit warm,” she murmured. “I guess there’s not much you can do apart from go home, unless you wanted to detransform here.”</p><p>Chat Noir’s eyes widened, and Marinette realized with a sinking feeling that she had once again made a huge mistake.</p><p>“Wait, were you serious?” he asked, and the denial died on her lips at the shy awe in his eyes.</p><p>“You - but - I don’t - I wasn’t -” Marinette clamped her mouth shut as Chat’s ears drooped just a little.</p><p>“Don’t worry about it,” he said, smiling, at the same time as Marinette asked, “You’d trust me with that?”</p><p>
  <em>Why did I say that?!</em>
</p><p>He blinked. “Of course. I mean - not with my identity, that could put you in danger, just - I know if you turned around and I detransformed, you wouldn’t try to peek.”</p><p>
  <span>The way he said it, like it was obvious, along with the sheer amount of faith he had in her </span>
  <em>civilian</em>
  <span> self, landed a fatal combo on her will to resist.</span>
</p><p>She tried anyway.</p><p>“But what if, I dunno, I trip over my own feet and end up seeing you anyway?”</p><p>
  <span>He chuckled. “We could switch off the lights. Besides, it wouldn’t take long. Plagg </span>
  <em>can</em>
  <span> eat cookies in a pinch. He won’t like it, but he’s probably hating being wet right now anyway.”</span>
</p><p>Marinette winced at the thought of poor, wet Plagg, dying to detransform so he could dry off.</p><p>
  <em>You shouldn’t be doing this! You’re the Guardian, for crying out loud!</em>
</p><p>Tikki had spoken about how the Guardian usually knew the identities of all the miraculous users. Usually though, the Guardian wasn’t a Ladybug wielder. The fact that she was obliged to participate in every single fight against Hawkmoth put Marinette in a conundrum: to know Chat Noir’s identity without risking his life, she would have to give up the Ladybug miraculous. It was that, or give up the Guardianship, which would mean forgetting everything she knew about the miraculouses - including Chat Noir.</p><p>Her stomach knotted at the thought. They would have to be very, very careful.</p><p>“<span>Are you sure about this?” she asked, even as guilt whispered that </span><em>she</em><span> should be making the decision.</span></p><p>The smile he gave her could melt ice.</p><p>“I’m sure, Marinette. You’re one of the most honest and honorable people I know. But”, he added seriously, “I won’t do it if it makes you uncomfortable. Seriously, I won’t be upset if you kick me out instead.”</p><p>The words “kick me out” were the final nail in the coffin of her common sense.</p><p>“Okay,” she said, getting up. “Let me just switch the light off.”</p><p>The lamp was on her bed, so after locking the trap door and closing all the curtains and shutters, Marinette climbed up and switched it off before shutting her eyes tight, just in case.</p><p>“I’m ready,” she said.</p><p>“Um. Could I have a cookie or two to give Plagg?”</p><p>Marinette cursed, switched the lamp back on, and clambered back down the ladder to fetch the cookies she’d made for Chat Noir yesterday, still in their jar. She opened it and put in on her desk.</p><p>“He can have as many as he wants.”</p><p>“He’ll probably whine because they’re not cheese,” said Chat Noir. “Don’t take it the wrong way, he’s just really picky.”</p><p>Marinette assured him that she wouldn’t, and climbed back up to her bed to switch off the lamp again. This time, she heard him take a deep breath before whispering the detransformation phrase, so low she couldn’t make out the words.</p><p>The next thing she heard was Plagg himself.</p><p>“Finally! Took you long enough!”</p><p>“Shh!” Marinette and Chat Noir shushed him in unison.</p><p>“Fine, fine. I’m not eating those cookies though, no offense to the baker. The fridge is down there, right?”</p><p>“Um,” said Marinette.</p><p>“<span>Wha- </span><em>no</em><span> -” said Chat Noir.</span></p><p>“<span>Great! And by the way, Pigtails, he’ll never tell you, but he’s </span><em>freezing</em><span>. Later!” said Plagg. </span></p><p>There was a tiny whoosh as he phased through the trap door, and then silence.</p><p>“Marinette, I am so sorry.”</p><p>Marinette sighed. “I guess I should have brought up some cheese.”</p><p>“I should have known he’d be like this,” groaned Chat. “I hope he doesn’t eat all your cheese and then fall asleep in the fridge.”</p><p>“I could go down and keep an eye on him, if you want.”</p><p>“Wouldn’t you have to switch the lamp on to get down the ladder?”</p><p>“Oh. Yeah.”</p><p>In the silence that followed, she heard him shuck the towels off and shiver through his teeth.</p><p>“You really are freezing, aren’t you?”</p><p>“Only a little bit!” he replied quickly. “I’m sure I’ll warm up now I’m dry.”</p><p>“Let me get you a blanket,” she said, moving towards the ladder.</p><p>“No! Don’t -”</p><p>Too late, Marinette remembered that she had no coordination in the dark. Her foot missed the rung and she found herself falling backwards, braced herself…</p><p>The impact was much softer than she’d anticipated. Why was the floor so soft? Slightly dazed, she realized Chat Noir had tried to catch her, but he’d stepped too close and she’d landed on top of him instead.</p><p>“Ow,” he groaned.</p><p>“Sorry!” she whispered back, hoping she hadn’t woken her parents. She scrambled to pick herself up, elbowing him in the process, and after a few more whispered apologies, she managed to pull them both to their feet.</p><p>Footsteps thudded on the ladder below. They froze for a second, then Marinette scrambled to put herself between Chat Noir and the trap door - as though that alone might hide his identity.</p><p>“Everything okay, Marinette?” Her father’s voice floated through the door.</p><p>“I’m fine!” she called back, as casually as possible. “I fell out of bed again.”</p><p>
  <span>She felt more than heard Chat Noir whisper “</span>
  <em>Again?</em>
  <span>” just next to her temple.</span>
</p><p>“Did you hit your head?” her father asked.</p><p>“No, Papa, don’t worry.”</p><p>“Okay, honey,” he said. “I’m going back to bed, then. Wake me up if anything still hurts in ten minutes.”</p><p>“’Night Papa,” Marinette said, her legs wobbly with relief.</p><p>As her father’s footsteps faded, Marinette became aware that Chat Noir was gripping her shoulders nervously.</p><p>“Your hands are like ice!” she said, reaching up to touch one of them. They were surprisingly soft. It was strange to meet skin and nail instead of leather. “I can feel how cold you are through my pyjamas,” she muttered, ignoring the odd little skip of her heart as his fingers curled around hers.</p><p>“You’re not that warm, either,” he retorted.</p><p>“Exactly, and you still feel freezing even to me. I’m getting you a blanket.”</p><p>“How far away is this blanket?” he asked, gripping her hand tighter.</p><p>“It’s in a chest, just around the couch.”</p><p>“So you’ll have to somehow get around the couch and back in order to find the blanket,” he said. “Nuh-uh. Can’t risk you falling and waking your dad again. Get back into bed and warm up. I’ll be fine.”</p><p>Marinette scowled in his general direction.</p><p>“You wanna catch a cold right now? Weren’t you looking forward to going back to school?”</p><p>“Of course, but it’s not the end of the world if I miss a day or two,” he said, lying through his teeth.</p><p>“You’ve been talking about going back to school for weeks,” Marinette countered. “I’m not letting you miss the first day of class because I was stupid enough to walk into a swimming pool.”</p><p>“Fine, then let me climb up with you and share your blanket. That way we can both warm up.”</p><p>“Fiiine.” Marinette sighed.</p><p>It was only when they’d climbed up and were huddled under the blanket together that she realized this, too, was a mistake. Cuddling up to magical leather that covered all of his body and half of his face was one thing. Leaning against his civilian self with only two layers of thin cotton between them and, in some places, nothing at all, was quite another.</p><p>
  <em>It’s a good job he’s </em>
  <span>not</span>
  <em> Adrien. I might actually die if he were.</em>
</p><p>“See, your feet are even colder than mine,” he whispered next to her cheek. Then he completely misinterpreted the shiver that passed through her and put his arm around her back to pull her closer.</p><p>
  <em>How is this not awkward for him?</em>
  <span> She wondered desperately. Perhaps his love for Ladybug was just so strong that everything else felt platonic to him. But then, she’d managed to destabilize him by planting a kiss on his neck that one time -</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A blush bloomed on her face and spread through her entire body as that memory replayed itself in her mind and her traitorous mind added the Adrien factor to that particular memory. Or the one that came after, of him getting “revenge” by kissing her cheek so… </span>
  <em>suggestively</em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>No way was that Adrien,</em>
  <span> she thought wryly, and a tiny part of her heart fell. Feeling silly for having entertained the thought and guilty for worrying Chat Noir, she searched desperately for something to talk about before the silence became too awkward.</span>
</p><p>Help came, unexpectedly, from Chat Noir himself. Unaware of her turmoil, he found the part of her back where her shirt had ridden up and pressed a freezing hand against her skin. Marinette just barely managed to bite back a screech.</p><p>“I thought you wanted me to warm up too!” she hissed in outrage as he giggled like the evil trickster he was.</p><p>“<span>I said we could </span><em>both</em><span> warm up,” he whispered back.</span></p><p>“Both means me too, you know!” she retorted.</p><p>“Well, you can! I’m warm in some places!”</p><p>“Some places,” she repeated. “I’ll keep my freezing hands to myself, thank you.”</p><p>That set off another peal of muffled laughter.</p><p>“I don’t even need to tease you any more,” he giggled. “Your mind goes to the worst places all by itself.”</p><p>“And whose fault is that?” She poked him in the ribs.</p><p>
  <em>Aaand another mistake</em>
  <span>, she realized as he poked her back until she was forced to retaliate. He was even more ticklish without the suit on, and she had no trouble tickling him into the mattress - though at this point she suspected he might be letting her win.</span>
</p><p>“Mercy! Marin- ahaha - s-STOP!”</p><p>“Shh!” she clapped a hand over his mouth and gave him one last poke for good measure before collapsing next to him to catch her breath. She gasped when he pulled her hand away from his mouth and into the crook of his neck, gripping it when she tried to pull away.</p><p>“What are you doing? You’ll get a sore throat!”</p><p>“Haven’t you heard the saying that idiots never catch colds?”</p><p>“Are you calling yourself an idiot?”</p><p>“Are you complimenting my intelligence, Princess?”</p><p>“That’s - I -” she sputtered as he burst into giggles against the duvet again.</p><p>“Told you I was warm in some places,” he whispered, grinning.</p><p>“You’re such a dork,” she retorted. “And I’m still mostly warmer than you. Turn around.” She scooted closer and pushed at his shoulder insistently until he turned his back on her, snaking one arm around his waist and fidgeting with the other until it found a relatively comfortable spot under the cat pillow. He was tense at first, and she had a moment of terrible doubt.</p><p>“Is this okay?” she asked quietly.</p><p>He laughed and melted into her.</p><p>“I was about to ask you that.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t okay with it,” she pointed out, relaxing as well.</p><p>Chat Noir grabbed her hand and pulled her arm more securely around his waist.</p><p>“Girls do this kind of stuff a lot, don’t they? I’ve seen - I mean, my friends do.”</p><p>“Yeah, I cuddle with Alya whenever we sleep over.”</p><p>“I wish guys did that more sometimes.”</p><p>The quiet longing in his voice wound around Marinette’s heart like a silk thread and squeezed painfully.</p><p>“Is that why you come here? For head pets and - cuddles?”</p><p>“<span>Yeah, I guess. I mean, not just that. I like talking to you, and learning to sew, and playing video games. You’re a lot of fun to be around. But you also give really nice hugs, without getting… I dunno, </span><em>weird</em><span> about it.”</span></p><p>She felt his thumb trace a slow path over her knuckles, and buried her forehead between his shoulder blades, curling her hand around his fingers.</p><p>
  <em>I love you, Kitty, </em>
  <span>she wanted to say.</span>
  <em> You’re my best friend and I love you so much. </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Even if she added </span>
  <em>platonically</em>
  <span>, though, her tongue shied away from those words.</span>
</p><p>“You’re welcome here whenever you want, just so you know,” she murmured instead.</p><p>“Thank you,” he whispered, so quietly she wondered if she’d imagined it.</p><p>
  <span>The silence that fell was both comfortable and strange, like they’d wandered into new and beautiful territory. Instead of taking his proximity for granted the way she’d become accustomed to, Marinette found herself reveling in it: the rough-soft brush of his thumb across the back of her hand, the wide pressure of his back against her stomach and chest, the way his feet had wound themselves around her ankles and pulled her legs up against his. He </span>
  <em>needed</em>
  <span> this, she realized. Butterflies stirred gently in her belly, but it was different to the helpless pull she felt around Adrien, or the bittersweet affection she held for Luka. Marinette didn’t know how to categorize what she felt for Chat Noir, and right now, she didn’t care.</span>
</p><p>He kept tensing with odd little shivers as her body heat seeped into him. Eventually the shivers stopped, and sleep stole across them like an extra blanket.</p><p>“I should go down and check on Plagg,” Chat Noir whispered, his voice slow and reluctant.</p><p>“I’ll go,” she replied sluggishly. “But you should finish warming up first.”</p><p>He didn’t reply, and Marinette’s mind drifted a little before jerking awake with a small grunt.</p><p>“Hey,” she mumbled into his back. “Don’t let me fall asleep, okay? Wake me up when you’re warm and want to go home.”</p><p>“Okay,” he replied.</p><p>—</p><p>
  <em>Adrien is kissing Marinette, and it is heaven. Finally, </em>
  <span>finally</span>
  <em> he knows who his Lady is, and - even better - she loves him back! The second he thought of it, everything suddenly made perfect sense - including the strangely intense affection he’s always held for her, different to how he felt about his other friends. Somewhere deep down, he must have known. Or maybe some of her luck rubbed off on him, because he couldn’t have wished for a better outcome than his Lady turning out to be Marinette Dupain-Cheng. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Her fingers curl around his, her other hand resting lightly on his chest, sending warm tingles straight to his heart. Her lips are soft and a little salty, and she smells like strawberry shampoo, and he’s so deliriously happy that he might actually faint…</em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>A thin beam of sunlight cut through Adrien’s dream like a precisely aimed claw, leaving only scraps in its wake. It was a dream he often had, and as usual upon waking, the details trickled out of his grasp until all he could remember was the happy, giddy feeling that had filled his entire body, now seeping away as well. He groaned, remembering that his life was good, but not that good.</p><p>Someone groaned in reply, and his eyes snapped wide open as he felt movement against his chest. Blinking away from the sunbeam that had woken him, it took him a moment to remember where he was.</p><p>
  <em>Oh crap, </em>
  <span>he thought, just making out Marinette’s cat pillow in the gloom.</span>
  <em> What time is it? Where’s Plagg?!</em>
</p><p>A clock on the shelf behind him read 5:36. He still had time to get home this time before anyone realized he was gone.</p><p>“Plagg!” he hissed, as loud as he dared.</p><p>There was a snore behind him, and Adrien let out a sigh of relief before muttering “Claws out.” Plagg gave a tiny mewl of protest before the transformation took him, its magic fizzing over Adrien’s skin like static electricity.</p><p>Another groan from beneath the covers. The green light must have bothered her. Assured that his identity was now safe, Chat Noir lifted a corner of the duvet and peered down at the mess of black hair that was tickling his collarbone just seconds before. An arm around his waist tightened its grip, and bare feet shifted against his shins. He could still feel the imprint of her fingertips grazing his skin where his t-shirt had ridden up a bit before he transformed. In a way, transforming was a relief. Being close to Marinette as his civilian self, even in the dark, had set his heart racing far more than he’d let on at first. It was easier to be with her as Chat Noir, with the barrier of the costume between them.</p><p>A smile tugged at the corners of his lips, and he brushed the hair away from her face, careful not to cut or pull it with his claws. Being close to Marinette as Chat Noir had taught him that if he concentrated, he could dull them at will. She had taught him many things, sewing being the least of them.</p><p>“Hey, Princess,” he murmured to the crown of her head. “Your other cat pillow has to go home now.”</p><p>It was a shame she wasn’t awake for that one. Maybe he’d repeat it for her later. She’d probably snicker and roll her eyes and give him a friendly shove. Though he could do without the shove right now. It was warm in her arms.</p><p>“Marinette~,” he sang quietly, more like a lullaby than a wake-up call. “Wake up, sleepy head.”</p><p>
  <span>He probably didn’t </span>
  <em>have</em>
  <span> to wake her up. He’d left her sleeping before. But the last couple of times he’d left without warning, she’d been worried about him. He should say goodbye to her properly this time, he decided.</span>
</p><p>He wriggled down in the circle of her arms until his head was under the blanket, and blew on her. She screwed up her face, wrinkling her nose in that adorable way she had, and he stifled a giggle as she withdrew her arm from around his waist to shield her eyes instead. She didn’t wake up, though.</p><p>“Come on, Marinette,” he said, pulling her hand away and holding it on the mattress between them. “You can go back to sleep once I’m gone.”</p><p>Her eyelids fluttered, but remained closed, and she let out a long sigh with a few garbled words at the end of it.</p><p>“Mmbye Adrien. Love you.”</p><p>Chat Noir stiffened.</p><p>
  <em>What??</em>
</p><p>Did she figure out his identity, or was she simply dreaming? Of him? Adrien-him?</p><p>“<em>Love you?”</em></p><p>
  <em>What the heck?????</em>
</p><p>
  <span>Adrien’s mind raced over the possibilities. Surely, if she’d figured out who he was, Marinette would have said something, so they could figure out what precautions to take. She was too responsible to lie about something like that. And surely, </span>
  <em>surely</em>
  <span>, she wouldn’t have continued to cuddle up to him like usual. Marinette was almost never at ease in front of Adrien Agreste, still intimidated by his father’s shadow after all this time. Unless…</span>
</p><p>If Marinette was in love with Adrien, then wouldn’t that also make her act awkwardly around him? Wouldn’t that explain the difference in how she treated his superhero and civilian selves?</p><p>
  <span>The more he thought about it, the harder it was to deny the possibility. Perhaps Marinette had simply been having a strange dream. Perhaps she’d meant it platonically. But the secret little smile that tugged at corners of her lips, and the twitch of her hand inside his, like she wanted to interlace their fingers, had his heart stumbling around in his ribcage like a drunk bear. His fingers twitched reflexively, and he curled them against hers, remembering that they had been holding hands last night with no suit between them. She had curled up against him and shared her warmth, he had fallen asleep in her arms, and now, with her face so close he could see the delicate shadow of her eyelashes and count constellations in her freckles, a recent, vital memory came crashing into his head like a meteorite: he had been dreaming of her. Dreamed of </span>
  <em>kissing</em>
  <span> her. The happy, giddy bliss that was usually his only memory of that one, repetitive dream, had been caused by </span>
  <em>her</em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>Uh oh.</em>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>This was impossible. Even if it was possible, it was terrible. Because Chat Noir - Adrien - was still desperately, hopelessly in love with Ladybug. Even Kagami hadn’t managed to change that, and had ended up dumping him for it a week ago. So how, </span>
  </span>
  <em>
    <span>why</span>
  </em>
  <span>
    <span>, could he possibly have fallen in love with Marinette Dupain-Cheng?</span>
  </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Wooo I finally got to write Adrien's POV! :D That'll be happening a bit more often from now on. Next time, they go back to school, and Adrien has to decide how to navigate his newly discovered crush :D Get ready for some awkward adrienette!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Classmates and crushes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Adrien gets a clue... almost.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Here is the awkward Adrienette I promised! I hope it is awkward enough :3 I love these dorks</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Adrien dived into the rosy dawn beyond Marinette’s balcony and didn’t look back.</p><p>
  <em>I love her I love her oh god oh crap I love her, </em>
  <span>said the rising litany of panic in his mind, while his heart thudded to the rhythm of his reckless footsteps.</span>
</p><p>How? Since when? It must have snuck up on him, somewhere between the head pats and the sewing lessons - or was he already in love with her before that? Was it that day with Kagami, laughing in the ball pool with her loose hair framing her face like an inky waterfall? Or the time she’d helped him escape his fans and sneak into the cinema? Was it when she’d thrashed him at Ultimate Mecha Strike and, instead of gloating, put her skills down to a charm bracelet, which she had then given him to make him feel better? His mind flipped through memories like so many polaroids, frantically analyzing, and he nearly slipped off the dewy rooftops more than once.</p><p>Stopping to get his balance and breath back, Chat Noir gulped in the morning air and wished he could detransform and talk to Plagg.</p><p>Or not. Plagg had been teasing him about Marinette - and noone else, except Ladybug - since day one. Adrien had always dismissed it as harmless. But what if he’d been right? Ignoring his own feelings in favour of what was acceptable came with being an Agreste; it was second nature to Adrien. Had he simply not wanted to admit that he might be in love with two girls at once?</p><p>Guilt twisted his gut into knots. Adrien groaned.</p><p>“So, you finally realized, huh?”</p><p>
  <em>Yep, that’s exactly the kind of thing Plagg would say,</em>
  <span> Adrien thought.</span>
</p><p>Wait. He was home? When had he detransformed?</p><p>“Plagg, help me,” Adrien whined, grabbing his friend out of the air and holding him close to his anguished face. “I don’t even know how I feel any more!”</p><p>The smug toothy grin dropped into a deadpan green stare.</p><p>“Hopeless kitten. You’re the only one who can figure that out.”</p><p>Plagg phased out of Adrien’s hands and Adrien let his arms flop back down on the bed. “You’re no help.”</p><p>Plagg sighed. “Look, it’s really not that deep, kid. Do you like her or not?”</p><p>“Of course I like her!”</p><p>“Do you want to be with her all the time?”</p><p>“Yes!”</p><p>“Do you wanna do that gross smoochy thing you humans do with your mouths?”</p><p>“Ew, Plagg! Just say ‘kiss’!” Adrien buried his face in his pillow again in a vain attempt to hide the blush that was making his entire body glow.</p><p>“Well, do you want to kiss her or not?”</p><p>Plagg saying it didn’t actually make him feel better. The memory of her sleeping face flashed through his mind - tiny freckles, warm cheeks, that small, secret smile as she said his civilian name. For just a moment, he allowed himself to imagine kissing her awake like the princess she was to him. Imagined being in the kind of relationship where he could do that, and she’d blink sleepily and smile, and pull him in to kiss him back.</p><p>He let out a strangled groan, squeezing his eyes shut until orange static replaced the vision.</p><p>Plagg snickered. “What was that? I can’t hear you!”</p><p>“Oh my god yes I want to kiss her okay?”</p><p>A brief knock at the door was his only warning before Nathalie walked into the room.</p><p>“Adrien, who were you talking to?” she asked without preamble. Her brows were creased in a frown that said “please don’t make me tell your father about this”.</p><p>“Uh,” said Adrien, blinking up at her from where he was lying on top of his bedsheets, eyes wild and hair mussed from rolling around on the bed. Plagg, of course, was nowhere to be seen.</p><p>Luckily, Adrien’s disorientation seemed to play in his favour.</p><p>“You haven’t sleep talked since you were a child,” Nathalie remarked, raising an eyebrow. “I hope you won’t start sleepwalking again, or we may have to remove your climbing wall.”</p><p>“I - I won’t do it again,” Adrien said automatically, even though they both knew he had no control over what he did when he was sleeping.</p><p>“We’ll see. Get dressed. Your piano tutor will be here in an hour.”</p><p>—</p><p>Several hours of distracted lessons, a fencing practice in which Kagami had thoroughly thrashed him, and a brief but scathing lecture from his father did not help Adrien parse his thoughts about Marinette. Eventually, after an hour of pacing around in his pyjamas, debating whether he should go and see her or not (they had previously agreed that he should stay home the night before they went back to school), Plagg had mercy on him and sat him down to continue their previous discussion.</p><p>“I just don’t get it,” Adrien complained. “If I’m in love with Marinette, then why does it feel so different to when I’m with Ladybug?”</p><p>“Different how?” asked Plagg, tucking into his third wheel of camembert. (His advice did not come for free.)</p><p>“I don’t know, like… I can think straight around her. I mean, I can with Ladybug too, when I need to. But I’m not, you know…”</p><p>“Completely obsessed?”</p><p>That wasn’t what Adrien liked to call it, but he couldn’t deny Plagg’s point.</p><p>“So basically, you’re wondering if what you feel for Marinette is love, or just a crush,” Plagg said with surprising sagacity.</p><p>“<span>A crush,” Adrien echoed slowly. He considered it for a moment, and the knot in his stomach began to loosen. “Yeah!” He cried. “That’s it, Plagg! It’s just a crush! I can’t be in love with Marinette, I just have a crush on her! And I got confused, because I </span><em>also</em><span> really love her, as a friend!”</span></p><p>“I remember you saying you had a crush on Viperion once,” Plagg remarked, but Adrien ignored him, his mind recalibrating itself in light of this new information. Of course he wasn’t in love with Marinette the way he was with Ladybug: spending hours gazing at her photos on the ladyblog, or thinking of ways to impress her, or fantasizing about her telling him that actually the other boy was Adrien Agreste, whom she’d been a fan of before, and fallen in love after he’d rescued her from Onichan, or tried to save her 25,913 times as Aspik.</p><p>With Marinette, it was different. Instead of feeling the urge to impress and woo her, Adrien just wanted more of what they already had: movie nights and sewing lessons and head pets and cuddles and - well, kisses would be…</p><p>(”nice” came nowhere near to describing the shy, sweet, breath-catching heat Adrien felt at the thought of kissing Marinette)</p><p>…but he was sure he could do without kisses if he tried hard enough not to think about it.</p><p>
  <span>Which he would have to do, he realized, his previous excitement fizzling out like a spent match. Because no matter what she’d said in her sleep - and as Adrien </span>
  <em>should</em>
  <span> have known from childhood experience, sleep talking didn’t count - Marinette was with Luka, who was </span>
  <em>not</em>
  <span> hopelessly in love with someone else. And even if seeing them together had always filled Adrien with a strange kind of longing, acting on that feeling would be selfish when he knew he’d drop everything - including Marinette - to be by Ladybug’s side.</span>
</p><p>Marinette deserved a chance at a happy relationship, and if Adrien couldn’t give it to her, then he could at least be the best friend he could be, crush be damned.</p><p>—</p><p>Adrien stepped through the gates to the lycée entrance of Françoise Dupont the next morning with frayed nerves.</p><p>“Seen your girlfriend yet?” Plagg whispered as Adrien surveyed the crowd of new students milling around the courtyard.</p><p>Adrien didn’t even bother to answer any more, though he did make a show of patting himself down in search of his phone, just so he could give the diminutive god of chaos a tap on the head. Plagg only snickered in response. Adrien hoped he would behave today.</p><p>
  <em>Just</em>
  <span> friends, he’d insisted to Plagg.</span>
</p><p>“Boooriiing,” Plagg had replied, and he hadn’t stopped nagging Adrien since.</p><p>At least here, in public, he was forced to be quiet.</p><p>“Adrien!” Nino’s voice behind him was his only warning before being ambushed.</p><p>“<span>Nino! Alya!” Adrien laughed, before recognizing the black pigtails poking out from underneath Alya’s arm. He suddenly became aware that those were </span><em>her hands</em><span> resting lightly on his chest. </span></p><p>“M-Marinette?”</p><p>
  <span>Dammit. Why was </span>
  <em>he</em>
  <span> stammering? That used to be her thing!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Adrien’s brain suddenly went into overdrive remembering every single time she’d stammered in front of him because </span>
  <em>oh</em>
  <span>, those memories hit very different all of a sudden.)</span>
</p><p>Marinette’s voice emerged, a little high but entirely devoid of stammer, from somewhere between Adrien’s left pectoral and Nino’s armpit.</p><p>“Hi, Adrien.” She cleared her throat and added, “Alya, this is not comfortable.”</p><p>“Suck it up, girl, I want my group hug before we all get separated!”</p><p>Adrien’s heart dropped like a stone.</p><p>“Separated? What do you mean?”</p><p>“We might not get separated,” Nino pointed out, pulling out of the hug after one last squeeze. “They did say they usually try to keep classes together, this year at least.”</p><p>“They say that, but it’s not certain. Sometimes people choose different lycées, so they move people around to keep the numbers balanced. It happened to Nora,” Alya insisted, pulling Marinette away as she let go of Adrien, who immediately felt cold. “I don’t want to go long-distance with you babe,” Alya added dramatically, “but I will if I have to.”</p><p>Nino burst out laughing.</p><p>“Alya, we’re still in the same school and we live in the same city. We’re not going long distance, at least not this year.”</p><p>Alya reached around Marinette to poke her boyfriend in the ribs, pouting. Marinette jumped out of the way - straight into Adrien, whose arms closed around her automatically.</p><p>“Sorry!” they both said, jerking away from each other like repelling magnets. Marinette giggled and rubbed the back of her neck again, and Adrien found himself copying her.</p><p>“Hey dude, are you okay? You look nervous.” Nino was ignoring Alya’s attempts to tickle him, his brow puckered in concern.</p><p>“Uhh, I guess?” said Adrien. “I hope we’re all in the same class, too. There aren’t that many classes, but…”</p><p>“Mademoiselles, messieurs!” An unfamiliar teacher was standing a few steps above them, holding a clipboard. “I’m sure you’re all impatient to know which classes you’re in, so without further ado, I will now do a roll call for each class. When I call your name, you will line up in front of your designated teacher, starting with Madame Zola.”</p><p>They stood and waited for their names to be called out. The first class had four students with surnames beginning with A, and Adrien was suddenly afraid they’d organized the classes alphabetically. Then Aurore Boréale was called, and he breathed a small sigh of relief. At least there was still a small chance he’d be in the same class as Marinette.</p><p>
  <em>And Alya and Nino</em>
  <span>, his brain supplied pointedly. </span>
</p><p>Three more classes were formed, with none of them being called. Lila was in the second one, which had most of Marc’s classmates - except for Marc himself.</p><p>“Agreste, Adrien.” Adrien froze at the sound of his name. The teacher continued. “Anciel, Marc. Bruel, Ivan…”</p><p>Nino grabbed his arm as though holding him back, even though Adrien hadn’t moved from his spot. The teacher called for “Césaire, Alya,” and they exchanged a nervous grin. Then:</p><p>“Dupain-Cheng, Marinette.”</p><p>
  <span>Adrien gasped and pulled out of Nino’s grasp to catch Marinette in a hug, completely forgetting his plan to get closer to her </span>
  <em>slowly</em>
  <span>. Alya was the one who reminded him as she let out a noise of protest, something about Marinette being </span>
  <em>her</em>
  <span> bestie. Adrien froze for a second, before putting Marinette back down on her feet with more haste than care, which caused her to trip backwards so he had to catch her hands again, mumbling apologies.</span>
</p><p>Marinette stared at him, cheeks pink and eyes wide, and her face broke out in a tender smile.</p><p>“It’s okay,” she said quietly. “I’m glad I’m with you, too.”</p><p>She glanced down, the pink blossoms on her cheeks turning pinker still, but then the name “Lahiffe, Nino” was called, and Nino pulled the three of them into another hug. Adrien felt a small hand come to rest on his back, and let his arm hover over her waist before settling it there, taking her lack of reaction as a good sign.</p><p>It turned out they were with all of their usual classmates, with the exception of Chloe and Lila, who had been replaced by Marc and Mireille. Marinette, of course, was ecstatic, and although Adrien did worry about Chloe, he took comfort knowing that at least in New York, she couldn’t be akumatized again.</p><p>The class sat in their usual places, though Nathaniel quickly negotiated a seat change with Mireille so that he could sit with his boyfriend, leaving Mireille sitting nervously next to Ivan.</p><p>Their teacher had other ideas, however.</p><p>“I’ve heard that the majority of this class have been together for several years already,” he said. “Which is why I’ve decided to shake things up a bit. It’s important for your futures that you learn to work with people you don’t know very well, or necessarily appreciate. As such, I’ve decided to randomize your seat assignments as I’m taking attendance. If anyone has a real problem with their assigned seat, please come and see me.”</p><p>Which is how Adrien found himself sitting next to Marinette in the second row, trying not to look too happy about being separated from his best bro. Nino was on the other side of the classroom in Sabrina’s old seat, sitting next to Rose, both looking glum about being separated from their girlfriends. Alya, on the other hand, had already convinced Nathaniel to show her some of his superhero sketches, and was questioning him about costume designs. Nathaniel was looking somewhat nervous, unused to being in the spotlight of Alya’s attention.</p><p>“Don’t worry, they’ll be fine,” Marinette said. He realized she’d been following his gaze. “They both love superheroes. I bet they’ll get into trouble for talking about them.”</p><p>Her voice was fond, but he thought it sounded sad, too.</p><p>“You’ll see her during break,” Adrien reassured her, lifting his hand to… what? What had he been about to do? Put it on her shoulder? On her hand? Was that appropriate for their level of friendship? Would he have done that before, or not?</p><p>He ended up dropping it lamely back on the table.</p><p>“Yeah,” said Marinette, not noticing his awkwardness - or pretending not to, perhaps. “Besides, at least I’m still sitting next to a friend.”</p><p>Adrien laughed softly. “Marinette, you would have been sitting next to a friend no matter where you were assigned in this class,” he pointed out, before adding, “I’m glad it’s me, though.”</p><p>
  <span>Before Marinette could respond (and before Adrien could wonder if that had been a bit </span>
  <em>too</em>
  <span> affectionate), a loud, metallic screech followed by screaming cut through the classroom chatter. Adrien was moving before he even registered what was going on, following Marinette out of the classroom and into the courtyard. The fire alarm sounded, but there was no need for it, every student and teacher was already outside and alert to a familiar cry, coming from the collège section:</span>
</p><p>“<span><span>AKUMA!”</span></span></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Reflection</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Adrien flopped onto his bed, exhausted, as soon as his Mandarin tutor left the room. Mademoiselle Hua Li, his father’s latest hire (for some reason, they never stayed on long), had seen the fatigue in his face as soon as she walked in. Instead of drilling him on his grammar, they’d simply chatted in Mandarin for the best part of an hour. Adrien had learned that she also played the piano, was training to become a language teacher, and spoke Chang-Yi as well as Mandarin.</p><p>Even chatting had become a struggle towards the end, though.</p><p>Marinette’s sleeping face from the morning before swam into view behind his eyelids, smiling a secret smile with his name on her lips. Mere minutes later, Adrien was at the beginning of the happy dream where he was kissing her (there were cheers in the background, which sounded unrealistic, but hey, it was his dream) when a knock startled him awake. He sat up, disoriented, the dream and the happiness that came with it slipping through his fingers like cataclysm ash.</p><p>
  <span>Nathalie waited her usual five seconds and then walked in, her presence jolting him unpleasantly back to a reality where he was </span>
  <em>not</em>
  <span> kissing Marinette.</span>
</p><p>“Dinner is served, Adrien.” She frowned, looking him up and down as he stood. “Were you sleeping?”</p><p>“Just resting,” he said, straightening his clothes self-consciously. “Will my father be dining with me tonight?”</p><p>“No. Adrien, are you ill? You look far more tired than your schedule today warranted.”</p><p>Adrien tried to swallow the irritation that burned his throat. The dream had taken the last of his usual defenses with it, leaving him feeling even more drained and high-strung than before his catnap. He was suddenly, bitterly grateful for his father’s busy schedule.</p><p>“<span>It was my first day of lycée,” he said, as mildly as he could manage. “And there were </span><em>three</em><span> akuma attacks, all of them in or around my school. I think that warrants a little fatigue.”</span></p><p>Nathalie’s frown deepened, but she said nothing as she led him downstairs.</p><p>The food woke him up properly. Each small click of cutlery rang through the empty room, and Adrien made a game of trying to make as little noise as possible. He’d been doing this ever since he was small, and had become quite good at it, but he’d never managed to achieve complete silence.</p><p>
  <em>Maybe I could do it as Chat Noir, </em>
  <span>he thought. His costume did grant him extra dexterity, though that might be canceled out if his hypersensitive cat ears caught the noises anyway.</span>
</p><p>“Do akuma attacks worry you?” Nathalie asked suddenly.</p><p>Adrien jumped. He hadn’t heard her walk back in.</p><p>“No,” he said quickly, before amending: “I mean, yeah, of course they do. Don’t you worry about them?”</p><p>Nathalie blinked. “Of course,” she said, her face as unreadable as ever. “But usually Ladybug and Chat Noir fix everything, don’t they?”</p><p>Adrien shook his head disbelievingly. “They only fix physical damage,” he said. “And yeah, sure, Ladybug’s cure also brings people back to life. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t really die, or remember dying.”</p><p>Nathalie’s eyes widened behind her glasses. “You’ve -?”</p><p>“<span>Died? Yeah. A bunch of times. So have most of my friends. Those who haven’t died have been injured, enslaved, mind-controlled, akumatized themselves…” Adrien stared quizzically at Nathalie. “</span><em>You’ve</em><span> been akumatized. You’ve seen my father akumatized. You were there when Style Queen turned me into a glitter statue. You know all this stuff.”</span></p><p>Some subtle flicker of emotion crossed her features, and Nathalie hesitated before replying.</p><p>“I suppose I see less of it, since I’m safe in the house most of the time. As your father would rather you were,” she added, her tone carefully neutral.</p><p>Adrien’s heart dropped. “I’d rather die another twenty times out there than be stuck in here again,” he said vehemently. Nathalie’s eyebrows shot up beneath her fringe, and he glanced away, adding: “At least out there I’m with friends who have been through the same thing. Besides,” he smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring way, “I’m sure Ladybug and Chat Noir will beat Hawkmoth eventually.”</p><p>Her usual closed expression was back in place, giving him no clue as to how effectively he’d managed to avoid disaster.</p><p>“Hm,” she said, after a pause. “Well, let me know if you need me to find you a therapist. I can probably fit a weekly appointment in if it’s during the weekend.”</p><p>A relieved laugh escaped him. “Thanks, Nathalie, but I’ll be fine.”</p><p>She nodded and left the room again, her footsteps almost soundless on the tiles.</p><p>“Yeah, I wouldn’t trust her to choose your therapist, either,” Plagg said a minute later, poking his head out from Adrien’s pocket. He pointed toward the cheese plate with a nubby black paw. “What is that? Emmental?”</p><p>“Gruyère, I think. They taste the same to me.”</p><p>“That’s because your taste buds aren’t as refined as mine,” Plagg drawled, drifting out of Adrien’s shirt to sniff the cubes of cheese. “No, this is Emmental. Sweeter and milder than Gruyère, with bigger holes.”</p><p>“I’m not going to remember that.”</p><p>“Your loss,” Plagg sang, juggling the cubes and catching them in his mouth one by one. Adrien couldn’t help but smile at that, though he remained preoccupied.</p><p>“I wonder why Nathalie’s suddenly concerned about akumas?”</p><p>Plagg shrugged. “Maybe she bought herself a soul,” he quipped, zipping back into Adrien’s shirt.</p><p>
  <span>Adrien nearly spat out his fruit salad. On any other day he would have defended Nathalie, but after </span>
  <em>that</em>
  <span> conversation, he couldn’t bring himself to chide Plagg. He felt the soothing vibration of a purr start up near his heart. </span>
</p><p>As he finished his dessert and walked back upstairs, though, he began to worry. What if Nathalie spoke to his father about Adrien dying, and his father panicked and took him out of school again? Adrien knew better than to take up the therapy offer, even though he knew he needed it. His father would definitely demand a therapist who would report back to him. There was an akuma counselor at school, too, but Adrien didn’t see the point if he couldn’t be completely honest with them - which would compromise his secret identity. Therapy, if he ever did get round to it, would have to wait until after they’d defeated Hawkmoth.</p><p>In the meantime, he needed to reassure Nathalie and his father that he was fine, despite having died a bunch of times during akuma attacks. Which meant he needed to go to sleep at a reasonable time.</p><p>
  <span>An hour later, Adrien was staring into darkness, towards a ceiling to high to see. His bed felt huge and cold, and the silence pressed in on him like the stale air of a tomb. Scenes from the day replayed themselves in his mind, heedless of his intent to sleep: Alya being melodramatic, Marinette blushing as he pulled her out of the way of an oncoming akuma and pinned her against the wall (</span>
  <em>by accident!!</em>
  <span>), Ladybug’s hands and feet hitting his shoulders in quick succession as she launched herself off him towards an akuma. That horribly awkward conversation he’d had with Marinette about lunch, and her shyly bringing him some of the cookies she’d made for Chat Noir, a gesture which had both moved and stung him (and how stupid was it that he was feeling jealous of himself?). Nino yelling after Alya, who was running after Ladybug, who kept glancing at him with a bittersweet softness he didn’t know how to respond to any more. Marinette sassing Alya the way she sometimes did Chat Noir, while Adrien watched and laughed and wished he dared to act like his alterego in front of her, wondering how much he could get away with before she figured him out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nino nudging him, eyebrows raised. Adrien blinking innocently, pretending not to know what Nino meant, but it was so obvious now that he saw it. Marinette had a crush on him - on </span>
  <em>Adrien</em>
  <span> him. A crush, or maybe more. He remembered how sad she’d seemed as she left him and Kagami on that bridge with André, and the realization than she’d done that so he and Kagami could be together, only for him to fail Kagami too, felt like a punch in the gut.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>Don’t think about that, </em>
  <span>he begged his brain. </span>
  <em>Think about nice things!</em>
</p><p>Cookies, video games, quiet embroidery lessons with the rain drumming on the roof outside, animated movies snuggled up together on her bed, waking up in her arms, with her hair tickling his nose, the smell of cinnamon and chocolate and strawberry shampoo… For the past month, she had been the only nice thing in his life, other than Plagg (who would definitely object to being called “nice”). Was that what this was? Had he just latched onto Marinette because she was nice to him? Was he confusing feelings of closeness for a crush, or had the crush developed because she was the only person showing him any physical affection? Adrien often had trouble interpreting his own emotions - except when it came to Ladybug. Ladybug was the exception to everything. Falling in love with her had been like being hit by a truck made out of candy floss. But Adrien knew that wasn’t the only way one could fall in love. His mother often used to tell him that his father had grown on her slowly, until she realized she couldn’t live without him.</p><p>Could Adrien live without Marinette? If Marinette had, say, accepted Audrey Bourgeois’ offer, would Adrien have missed her as much as he would now? Would he have realized, too late, just how much she meant to him, or would his crush have fizzled out before he could figure out what it was?</p><p>Just thinking about it was alarmingly painful. And it didn’t matter either way, he decided. He had feelings for her now, and even without knowing exactly how deep they ran, Adrien knew he didn’t want to live without Marinette. Which wasn’t fair to her, because he couldn’t live without Ladybug, either.</p><p>He blew a frustrated sigh through his nose as he turned over in bed again. He was too cold. Maybe Plagg would warm him up if Adrien asked nicely.</p><p>“Plagg?” he whispered.</p><p>The reply came immediately, acerbic: “No.”</p><p>“I haven’t even asked yet!”</p><p>“You said we were staying here tonight. If you wanted to see Pigtails, you should’ve said so before I snuck into the kitchen.”</p><p>“<span>You snuck into-” Adrien lifted himself up on one elbow to glare in Plagg’s general direction. </span><em>“Again?</em><span> Plagg!”</span></p><p>“What? The cook never even mentions it. Too scared of what your dad would do if he thought she’d let a rat get in.”</p><p>“She’s going to think it was me!”</p><p>“So? You’re a growing boy.”</p><p>“No normal teenager sneaks into the kitchen to eat ten wheels of cheese!”</p><p>“Please, there were only six.”</p><p>Adrien sighed, lying back down and staring back up into the darkness. “I wasn’t going to ask that, anyway,” he grumbled. “I just wanted you to come warm me up a little.”</p><p>Plagg groaned. “I’m too full. I’d rather take you to Pigtails’ house.”</p><p>“We’re not going to Pi- to Marinette’s house.”</p><p>Adrien sensed more than saw Plagg lift his head to peer at him. Green eyes glowed in his peripheral vision.</p><p>“Why not?”</p><p>“You said you didn’t want to.”</p><p>“You’d talk me into it if you wanted to go, so why not?”</p><p>Adrien huffed, but the eyes kept staring at him, waiting. Eventually, he grumbled: “I have to get unused to sleeping next to her. It’s, uh. Addictive.”</p><p>Plagg’s soft cackle danced over Adrien’s pride, and he pouted, knowing Plagg could see him.</p><p>“It’s only happened twice!” the cat-god crowed.</p><p>“Shut up. It’s not my fault I get no affection at home.”</p><p>The cackle faded abruptly, and Adrien immediately missed it. Before he could apologize, he felt a tiny, warm head bump his cheekbone, purring.</p><p>“Come on, kid,” Plagg said, his voice buzzing as it passed from purr to speech. “I know I’m not big enough to hug you properly. Lets get you to Pigtails.”</p><p>“Plagg, I can’t. I have a crush on her,” Adrien said, cupping Plagg against his cheek.</p><p>“You’ve always had a crush on her,” Plagg retorted, nuzzling him.</p><p>“<span>Yeah, but now I </span><em>know</em><span> about it.”</span></p><p>“You know you’re in love with Ladybug and it doesn’t stop you from being a good friend to her.”</p><p>Adrien bit his lip, running his thumb between Plagg’s ears. His fur was softer than anything Adrien had ever encountered, and he radiated warmth constantly, but he was right: it wasn’t the same as being held by another human.</p><p>“What if I get too used to it and I can never sleep without her ever again?” he whispered.</p><p>Plagg scoffed. “With your schedule?”</p><p>Adrien laughed, the last of his resolve dissipating like a flurry of purified akumas.</p><p>“Fine, but I’m staying transformed,” he said, grinning at the prospect of seeing Marinette.</p><p>“Just don’t get wet,” grumbled Plagg.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>Marinette was worn out by the time she arrived home that afternoon. Three akuma attacks in one day wasn’t exactly a record, but usually during multiple attack days, one or more of the attacks was either Monsieur Pigeon, or baby August. The superheroes agreed that baby August’s akumatizations seemed too haphazard to be deliberate, and often Hawkmoth would take rest of the day off after that, as though trying to direct a giant toddler had exhausted him.</p><p>Today’s three akumas, however, had been difficult: a giant werewolf whose victims could also spread lycantropy, turning most of Paris into wolves; a cloud of sentient dust whose goal remained unknown even after she’d been purified; and Stormy Weather again, this time bent on throwing Lila into a volcano. Marinette was almost tempted to let her. The disadvantage of no longer having Lila in her class, she realized, was that she couldn’t keep an eye on her. She had spoken to Aurore as Ladybug, telling her to try and ignore Lila so as to avoid becoming a target, but Aurore was even more hot-headed than Marinette, and didn’t have an Adrien in her class to talk her down.</p><p>Speaking of which, Adrien had seemed different today. Shyer, more awkward, more hesitant than usual - although he’d joked around with Nino and Alya the way he always did. Was it her? Had she already done something wrong on her first day sitting next to him? Had he noticed her blushing when he’d saved her that one time and been weirded out??</p><p>“Is Chat Noir coming tonight?” Tikki asked, cutting into her dazed fretting. Marinette had just finished what was supposed to have been a fifteen-minute exercise. It had taken her an hour and a half.</p><p>“I don’t know,” she groaned, rubbing her temples. “Probably not. He must be tired after all those akumas.”</p><p>“Just a quiet night in with the two of us, then,” Tikki sighed, plopping down on top of Marinette’s homework file with a cookie.</p><p>Marinette glared at her kwami in mock offense. “What’s wrong with a night in with me?!”</p><p>“I like watching you two,” Tikki replied, smiling through a mouthful of chocolate chip. “You relax around each other. It’s nice.”</p><p>Marinette blinked, oddly touched. “Oh. I guess,” she said, pushing away from her desk.</p><p>
  <span>Her head spun a little as she stood. It was only 9pm, but she definitely needed to sleep. </span>
  <em>What if Chat turns up?</em>
  <span> She worried as she changed into her pyjamas behind her privacy screen. The idea of him coming only to find a locked window and a dark room felt awful somehow. Some rational remnant of Marinette’s fried brain recognized that she was overdramatizing due to exhaustion, but she couldn’t bring herself to ignore her kitty, even implicitly.</span>
</p><p>“I’m going to leave the lamp on, in case Chat shows up,” she told Tikki.</p><p>Instead of teasing her, Tikki nodded and flitted away to her den on the shelf behind Marinette’s pillow.</p><p>Marinette pulled back the locking bar on her skylight, so Chat Noir would just have to push to let himself in. He’d left it wide open yesterday morning when he left, and the cold had woken her up. She would have to talk to him about that. It was September, after all.</p><p>
  <em>What if he stops coming now we’re back at school?</em>
  <span> Like her, he was no longer grounded, so presumably he had his social life back. Her heart sank at the thought. She wondered what his friends were like, and what they thought of him. She was pretty sure Chat was a class clown, although it wouldn’t be surprising if he were also quite popular, given how kind and pretty he was. There was a good chance he’d forget all about her, now he was back at school.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>Wait, back up. Kind and what now?</em>
</p><p>She really must be tired.</p><p>Marinette brushed her teeth and washed her face in a daze, before removing her hair ties and climbing into bed. She stared up, through her skylight, to a sky too dark to make out. No stars, no city lights, no clouds, no moon, no green eyes glowing in the dark. Just her own reflection staring back at her, lit from behind her head by the lamp. The yellow light cast strange shadows on her face, leaving her eyes in darkness while her forehead and cheekbones glowed like a skull. After fighting three akumas in one day, her frayed nerves took that image and ran with it, imagining an akuma where reflections came to life. A shiver of unease went through her, and she turned to her side, looking instead at the pinboard with all the photos of her friends on it.</p><p>Chat was missing, she realized. She wondered if she could get away with putting one of Alya’s photos of both superheroes on there, perhaps with Alya in it, too. Or the one Alya had taken of Marinette and Nino with Chat, the day he’d walked them home. Marinette smiled at the memory. She was still convinced Chat Noir had just been bored that day, although he did still escort Art and Music students home, when they had too much to carry. Of course, he would never admit that he’d originally just been fooling around.</p><p>Her eyelids fell shut without her noticing, fond memories flickering behind them. When Chat Noir turned up two hours later, she thought she might be dreaming.</p><p>“Nightmares, Princess?” he murmured, slipping silently through the skylight and closing it again.</p><p>“Mmn?”</p><p>“You don’t usually sleep with the light on.”</p><p>Marinette lifted the duvet so he could snuggle in next to her. Shocks of night-cold super suit under her hands, feet, and knees told her she wasn’t dreaming him after all.</p><p>“Waiting for you,” she mumbled, the words thick with sleep. She shivered as she pulled him closer, squinting through heavy-lidded eyes. His cheeks were pink from the wind, and she pushed one hand between his face and the pillow, running her thumb over his nose and cheekbone. “You’re freezing,” she complained.</p><p>“S-sorry,” he whispered, pulling away slightly. Marinette let out an irritable growl and tugged him firmly back towards her with her free hand around his waist.</p><p>“Shush,” she ordered sleepily. “Warm up and rest. Set your alarm…”</p><p>“Done already,” he reassured her from somewhere above her head. She had slipped down off the pillow and onto his arm, pulling her hand away from his face, so she reached up with her other hand to cup his other cheek instead. Thankfully he was warming up fast, one of the advantages of the miraculous suits. Marinette snuggled closer still, tangling her legs in his and pushing his bell out of the way so she could bury her nose in his neck. The hand on his cheek slipped limply across his face as she shifted, and Chat Noir chuckled and caught it in his, intertwining their fingers. She briefly wondered if she was imagining the ghost of his lips on her palm, if it had been accidental, or meaningful; but she had no time to think about it before the comforting weight and scent and presence of him pulled her back into slumber.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Blackmail</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>TW: bullying, blackmail</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lila was angry. No, Lila was <em>furious</em>, and it was all Ladybug’s fault. Her plan had failed, and none of her new classmates trusted her now. This was going to take weeks of damage control.</p><p>Lila’s intention, originally, had not been to piss off Weather Girl no. 2 (the nickname which had set her off), but something about her - the pigtails, perhaps, or maybe the temper - had been irresistible. It wasn’t Lila’s fault she had a terrible memory for names after having hit her head while saving Clara Nightingale’s parakeet from being crushed in an earthquake after they met during the latter’s world tour four years ago.</p><p>Times like these - sitting in the bathroom stall, holding back tears and glancing angrily up at the window for that vengeful purple-black flutter of hope - Lila was reminded that she was not, in fact, a friend of Clara Nightingale or Jagged Stone; nor had she ever saved either of their pets. Nor was she disabled, or a piano prodigy (or had it been the niece of a piano prodigy?), or any of the other things she’d decided to add to her nice little fantasy self to make her seem a little more special. Lila was a liar, and the person she lied the most to was herself.</p><p>The akuma didn’t come. Even Hawkmoth didn’t think her worth his time.</p><p>
  <em>(Yes, beat yourself up, maybe it’ll work, maybe he’ll notice…)</em>
</p><p>At least in her old class some of them still believed her. Rose and Kim had never stopped being gullible, and the others seemed to give her the benefit of the doubt most of the time - with the notable exception of Adrien and Marinette. She almost missed messing with Marinette, though Adrien’s watchful presence prevented her from doing so too openly.</p><p>
  <span>Of all the people in her class, Adrien was the only one who had somehow seen through her completely, and offered his friendship judgment-free, regardless. Sometimes - though she would never admit it - Lila regretted rejecting him that day. Maybe if she really were friends with Adrien Agreste, model and face of the Agreste brand, her life would actually look a little bit like the one she pretended to have. But that would have meant abandoning the imaginary life she had spent months carefully crafting for herself, and you couldn’t just </span>
  <em>ask</em>
  <span> that of someone whose real life was as painfully ordinary as Lila’s was. Having an ambassador for a mother and being forced to switch schools all the time was far more lonely than glamorous. Creating a different backstory for each new school had been a fun game at first, but now it was a coping mechanism. It sure beat making actual friends only to move away and watch them slowly lose interest in you.</span>
</p><p>Adrien and Marinette would never understand that, of course. Marinette hated her. Adrien tolerated her, for Marinette’s sake, and that had worked, for a while. Until ten minutes ago, in fact, when Gabriel Agreste had informed her via text that he would no longer be needing her services. When Lila had called back, that awful monotone secretary had informed her that her modeling contract was now finished, as they had found someone “better”. When Lila asked to speak with Gabriel Agreste directly, the secretary hung up on her. Now, Lila had lost the one thing that made her special that wasn’t a lie.</p><p>A movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention, but it was just a fly buzzing in through the open window.</p><p>Lila’s fist slammed into the side of the stall, and a sob escaped her just as the door to the bathroom opened. She inhaled sharply and held her breath. Silence fell for several seconds, during which sharp pain began to shoot through her hand and wrist.</p><p>“Hello?”</p><p>
  <em>Goddammit why did the bathrooms in this school all have to be gender neutral?</em>
</p><p>Lila had never been very good at holding her breath, possibly due to having lied her way out of all her schools’ mandatory swimming lessons. The sound that escaped her was pathetic. Which might have been okay - she could work with pathetic - had the intruder been almost anyone else.</p><p>“Hey, are you okay?” Adrien stepped closer to the stall she was crouched in, holding her wrist and gasping. “I thought I heard a bang, did you hurt yourself?”</p><p>“Go away,” Lila growled through clenched teeth. Or tried to. It came out more as a strangled whine.</p><p>A pause. “Are you sure? I can get someone else. A friend or a teacher, or… what’s your name? Let me help you.”</p><p>Lila was about to scream at him through the door when it occurred to her that Adrien hadn’t recognized her voice. Biting her lip as she rose to her feet, she thought fast, her heart accelerating as a plan materialized in her mind, fully formed and beautiful. She let out a few more sobs, speaking plaintively through them.</p><p>“My hand hurts. I was helping this girl with black hair in pigtails pick up her stuff when it fell out of her bag and she accused me of stealing her lucky bracelet, even though I didn’t, and I even offered to let her search me, but she grabbed my hand and twisted it really hard and I think my wrist is sprained, or maybe even broken…”</p><p>“Lila.” His voice was flat, all traces of sympathy gone.</p><p>
  <em>Well, it was worth a try.</em>
</p><p>“Now will you go away?” she sniffed.</p><p>“Are you actually crying?”</p><p>“What do you care?”</p><p>“We already had three akumas yesterday. It’d be nice to get through one day of school without one.”</p><p>A bitter laugh escaped her. “I appreciate your honesty.”</p><p>“I wish I could appreciate yours more often.”</p><p>“You wouldn’t actually appreciate it, believe me.”</p><p>“There’s a difference between honesty and cruelty. Speaking of which, didn’t we have a deal? You leave Marinette alone and I don’t get my father to fire you?”</p><p>Malevolent fury lit a fire in her throat, and Lila was unlocking the door before she knew what she was doing.</p><p>“<span>No, we don’t,” she snarled, advancing on a very alarmed Adrien as he retreated towards the sinks. “Because your father just sent me </span><em>this</em><span>!” She shoved her phone in his face, the message still showing. “</span><em>I’m already fired!</em><span> And you know what that means, Adrien? It means I can do whatever the hell I want to Marinette, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You have no leverage against me any more - </span><em>unless</em><span>!” She smiled, relishing the fear in his eyes. “Unless you convince him to take me back on. Your dad’s secretary said they found someone better, but I don’t believe it, because modeling is pretending and you </span><em>know</em><span> how good I am at that. So how about this? You go home this evening and convince your father to let me stay on, or I will make Marinette’s life a living hell, starting with this.”</span></p><p>Lila scrolled through her photo gallery to find the one she wanted while Adrien began to protest.</p><p>“Lila, I can’t do that. You’ve met my father, you know he doesn’t listen to me. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t convince him to take you back on if he’s already made the decision-”</p><p>The sound of him shutting up at the sight of the photo was almost worth the ordeal of being fired from Gabriel. His eyes widened in sheer panic - Lila was disappointed not to see any jealousy or hurt, but then Adrien of all people knew how photos could easily be taken out of context. Especially this one.</p><p>“When did you take that?”</p><p>“I was coming home from a charity gala-”</p><p>“Lila.”</p><p>“Fine, I was coming home from babysitting last week. You can’t blame me. They were just sitting there, sharing ice cream, in public, in broad daylight. I’m sure other people took photos as well. The Ladyblog may have gone all ethical these past few months, but I’m sure it would only take a tiny nudge to get people to share theirs on other social media.”</p><p>Adrien glanced from her to the photo, visibly shaken. “If I talk to my father, will you delete this?”</p><p>“If you convince him to let me model again, sure.”</p><p>“<span>Lila, he won’t listen to me! He never does! </span><em>Please</em><span>, just - can’t you be a decent human being for once in your life?”</span></p><p>Lila’s smile vanished. She tapped the share button on the photo and held up her phone, her thumb hovering over the Instagram icon.</p><p>“<span>Decent got thrown out the window the second your father fired me by </span><em>text message. </em><span>You’d better </span><em>make</em><span> him listen, Adrien. Because this -” she waved the phone again, “- is just the beginning.”</span></p><p>Watching the light go out of Adrien’s eyes was painfully vindicating.</p><p>“I’ll do my best,” he promised bleakly.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>Adrien fled the bathroom like a cat out of hell, not noticing the petite pigtailed figure until he’d run right into her.</p><p>“<span>I’m sorry! I’m - Oh my god Marinette I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you, I was - um, distracted, and - </span><em>oh no are you bleeding?</em><span>”</span></p><p>Marinette covered the thin red line on the side of her hand where he’d bumped against her.</p><p>“It’s fine!” she said. “I’m fine! I already had that, I cut myself working on a project at lunchtime and - hey…”</p><p>Lila strode past them, sending him a saccharine smile, all traces of tears hidden beneath a clever touch of make-up. It had taken her less than a minute. If she hadn’t just successfully blackmailed him, Adrien might have been worried about her.</p><p>As it was…</p><p>“Are you okay?” Marinette asked in a low voice, her eyes wide with concern as they darted between Adrien and the smugly retreating swish of long brown hair.</p><p>Adrien had not planned on telling Marinette about his altercation with Lila. He had no plan at all, in fact. It had happened so fast, and his brain was still shrieking in panic. He wished he could talk to Ladybug about this, but in the absence of the actual superhero, Everyday Ladybug would have to do.</p><p>Besides, this concerned her first and foremost.</p><p>“I need to talk to you. Can we..?”</p><p>“Library,” she said, grabbing his hand. “Let’s go.”</p><p>As she led him to a quiet corner of the library, Adrien’s heartbeat began to slow, allowing him to recover some of his cognitive faculties. Marinette’s presence did tend to do that for him. It was one of the many reasons why he loved her.</p><p>
  <em>As a friend. You love her as a friend. You also have a crush on her, but you’re not </em>
  <span>in love</span>
  <em> with her.</em>
</p><p>
  <span>Adrien wasn’t sure why his small percentage of recovered cognitive faculties had decided to focus on </span>
  <em>that</em>
  <span>, especially since there was still way too much adrenaline coursing through his veins to leave room for any of the more pleasant feelings he was starting to associate with Marinette. Which was a shame, because once she knew what was going on, she probably wouldn’t want to see him ever again - as Adrien or Chat Noir.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>Don’t be silly. It’s Marinette. She’s not like that, </em>
  <span>Adrien chided himself as Marinette led him to an alcove between two bookshelves on the upper floor of the library.</span>
</p><p>“Here, let’s - oh, I’m sorry!” She squeaked, pulling her hand away from his, or trying to, but Adrien’s fingers closed around hers reflexively. Marinette glanced down at their joined hands, then back up at him, a blush camouflaging her freckles.</p><p>“Sorry,” he muttered belatedly, letting go of her hand.</p><p>Marinette’s brow puckered in concern, and she reached out hesitantly to brush his fingers with hers again, her blush fading, replaced with an anxious frown. He squeezed her hand in an attempt to reassure her, or himself, or maybe both.</p><p>“Adrien, you’re as white as a sheet. What did she do to you?” A spark of something dangerous glinted in her eye and edged her voice, though she was still speaking softly to him, and her hand was back in his. Adrien opened his mouth, closed it, took a deep breath, and another. This was going to be difficult.</p><p>“She didn’t do anything to me,” he said finally, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice. “But she’s planning on doing something to you, if I don’t convince my father to keep her on as a model.”</p><p>Marinette’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “What did she say?”</p><p>Adrien swallowed and glanced around to make sure they couldn’t be heard, lowering his voice to a whisper.</p><p>“She has a photo of you and - and Chat Noir, eating ice cream together. She says she’s going to post it, and see if maybe other people took photos of you guys…”</p><p>Marinette’s face went pale first, then very red, as panic and embarrassment warred for purchase on her features.</p><p>“Th-that’s not! I-I mean! I just - Chat Noir wanted to get me some food because I made him some cookies - just! As friends! We’re - we’re friends, and sometimes, we, um, he stops at my house to eat cookies, because, y’know, best bakers in Paris! Haha!”</p><p>
  <span>Adrien blinked in confusion, before realizing that she probably thought </span>
  <em>Adrien</em>
  <span> thought she was dating Chat Noir in secret. </span>
</p><p>“Oh! I know - I mean, I guessed. You guys didn’t really look like a couple on the photo, even though you were sharing ice cream. But it’s still André’s ice cream,” he added. “People are going to jump to conclusions, especially if the press get hold of it. You’ve seen how they get about Ladybug and Chat Noir.”</p><p>
  <span>Marinette blanched. “Oh my god, my parents are going to flip. They didn’t know I went out that night! And - </span>
  <em>Ohmygod Alya!</em>
  <span>” Marinette hissed, slapping her hands to her cheeks and doing a good impression of the Edvard Munch’s Scream. “She’ll want to know everything! And she’ll hate me for getting in the way of her ship, when I already have - oh no.” Her hands dropped to cover her mouth as a look of horror dawned on her face. “Luka.”</span>
</p><p>Adrien frowned. “Luka?”</p><p>“<span>Luka,” Marinette repeated. “Who I’m </span><em>dating</em><span>.”</span></p><p>
  <em>You’re still dating Luka? </em>
  <span>Adrien almost asked, but didn’t, thanks to years of interview training.</span>
</p><p>Instead he said, “Luka’s an understanding guy, though, right?”</p><p>Marinette nodded, but she didn’t say anything. She was staring at Adrien’s chest like his t-shirt might have the solution woven into it, and Adrien knew exactly what she was remembering. Guilt stabbed his heart as it became suddenly, blindingly obvious that sleeping in each others’ arms, in the same bed, would definitely not be seen as platonic by anyone, even someone as tactile and understanding as Luka, no matter what they said.</p><p>Part of Adrien’s mind tried to argue that the event that had gotten him grounded in the first place - sneaking his classmates into his room - had ended with them all lying in a loose, cuddly pile on the floor, and that Marinette snuggled with Alya and her other friends all the time; but that voice no longer sounded convincing at all. What he - Chat - and Marinette had been doing was different, and deep down, both of them knew it.</p><p>“I’ll try to convince my father to let her stay on,” Adrien said hopelessly. “I doubt he’ll listen, but…”</p><p>“<span>No,” said Marinette. She shook her head and met his eyes, coming back to herself. “No, Adrien, you shouldn’t have to work with her. And you don’t need to let her blackmail you, especially not using me.” Marinette smiled up at Adrien then with so much determination and affection that he felt the urge to lean down and kiss her cheek, countered by an equally strong urge to run and hide in shame as he remembered that it had been </span><em>his</em><span> idea to go out and get ice cream.</span></p><p>He swallowed both urges.</p><p>“Aren’t you scared of the backlash?” he asked, forcing himself to focus on finding solutions. “Some ladynoir fans are…”</p><p>“I know,” she said, her smile turning wry. “I know two of the biggest ones. And I’m friends with both of them. I’ll be fine. I’ll ask Alya to do damage control, and I’ll ask Chat to give a statement or make a video or something.”</p><p>“I can help you do that yourself, if you need it,” Adrien offered. “Help you decide you what to say and what not to say. People will still talk, but it’ll probably blow over pretty quickly if you act like it’s no big deal.”</p><p>“Which it isn’t!” Marinette insisted, arms crossed. “It’s just a photo of two friends eating ice cream. André just happened to be the first snack vendor we saw. It could have been crêpes.”</p><p>“Yeah,” said Adrien, grimacing. “But you’d still have been seen together, and people could still jump to conclusions. I sh- I mean, Chat should… probably have known better.”</p><p>“<span>Hey, don’t blame Chat Noir, either,” Marinette said sternly. “Both of us chose ice cream, and besides, Lila is the villain here. I </span><em>hate</em><span> that she tried to use me against you like that.”</span></p><p>“Well, it makes sense. She knows I only tolerate her so she’ll leave you alone.”</p><p>Marinette frowned up at him, and Adrien realized his mistake.</p><p>“What do you mean by that?”</p><p>
  <em>I guess she might as well know the whole story. </em>
  <span>He glanced away and took a deep breath.</span>
</p><p>“The time you got expelled because of her, when she started modeling for my father, I told her I’d still pretend to be her friend if she talked the principal into letting you come back to school.”</p><p>Marinette’s eyes widened, and for a moment Adrien thought she was going to get angry.</p><p>Instead, she threw herself at him, wrapping him in a hug.</p><p>“<span>You put up with her all this time for </span><em>me?</em><span>” she hissed in a voice strangled by tears. “</span><em>Why would you do that?</em><span>”</span></p><p>“You would have done the same thing for any one of your friends,” Adrien replied with a tremor of relief in his voice as he returned the hug.</p><p>“<span>That - I - </span><em>still!</em><span>”</span></p><p>“Besides, my father doesn’t really listen to me when it comes to who I model with. If I said I didn’t like a coworker, he’d say I needed to stop throwing tantrums and act like a professional. I’m so sorry, Marinette.” A humourless laugh escaped him, sounding far too much like a sob, and Marinette squeezed him tighter.</p><p>“<span>Hey, no!” she soothed. “You haven’t done anything wrong! You spent over a year putting up with Lila to protect me! </span><em>I’m</em><span> sorry. If I had just… no, you know what, never mind. Thank you, Adrien. You didn’t have to do that, but you did.”</span></p><p>Tears welled out of Adrien’s eyes and he squeezed them shut, allowing himself to melt into her just for a moment. Marinette rubbed his back and continued to murmur reassurances while he tried to get his breathing under control.</p><p>“You shouldn’t have had to put up with her in the first place,” she said once he’d calmed down a little. “Because Lila should never have gotten me expelled. And she shouldn’t be blackmailing you, or threatening me, no matter how unfair your father’s been to her.”</p><p>Adrien felt her nod decisively and pull away, and he let her go reluctantly, wiping his eyes and feeling pathetic. She pulled out a packet of tissues and handed it to him, but not before taking one for herself. Strangely, that made him feel marginally better about losing it in front of her as civilian self.</p><p>“You are the best person, you know that?” Marinette mumbled through her tissue after blowing her nose. Adrien let out a helpless little giggle, and Marinette echoed him.</p><p>“Not as good as you,” Adrien croaked, reaching out to wipe a stray tear off her face with this thumb.</p><p>The pink splotches on Marinette’s cheeks grew pinker as whatever protest she was about to utter died on her lips. Adrien pulled his hand back quickly and glanced away. The wetness on his thumb seemed to burn, from want or guilt, he didn’t know.</p><p>“So,” he said, clearing his throat. “Um, what do you want to do first? Who should we tell?”</p><p>Marinette bit her thumbnail, frowning thoughtfully. “Alya and Nino,” she said. “Besties first. And we should tell them after school, so they have the night to cool off before they see Lila again. We don’t want them to straight up murder her, tempting as that is.”</p><p>Adrien nodded. “What about Chat Noir? I can tell him, if I see him first.”</p><p>“No, tell him to come see me, if you see him. Don’t worry about it too much, though. I see Ladybug around quite a bit, and I know they both check the ladyblog. Maybe we can get Alya to get a message out to him.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t attract the public’s attention if we can avoid it, though,” Adrien countered. “Let’s wait until tomorrow at least. If he hasn’t shown up by then, we’ll ask Alya for help.”</p><p>Of course, nothing would prevent him from going over to see Marinette tonight as Chat Noir, Adrien would make sure of it.</p><p>“Right,” said Marinette. “Let’s meet up at my house after school, then. It’s lucky we only have two hours left this afternoon. And once you’re all gone, I’ll have to talk to my parents. And call Luka…” Her face fell.</p><p>“I’m sure Luka will understand,” Adrien said, putting his hands on her shoulders and ignoring the guilt and jealousy fighting for territory in his heart. “For now, let’s focus on Alya and Nino. We should ask them if they’re available now, before one of them gets roped into babysitting.”</p><p>Marinette grimaced. “Yeah, I’d rather not have this conversation with the siblings around.”</p><p>The first bell rang as they were leaving the library, and they rushed to get to their next class on time, splitting up to sit next to their best friends. Nino raised his eyebrows, smiling at the sight of them coming in together, but Adrien didn’t give him time to tease them.</p><p>“Emergency meeting at Marinette’s after school,” he said without preamble.</p><p>Nino’s eyes widened in alarm. “Emergency? Dude, what’s going on?”</p><p>“I can’t tell you right now, but it’s not good and we need your help. Are you free? Can you come?”</p><p>“<span><span>Sure, but…” Nino glanced behind them to where Alya was grilling Marinette in hushed whispers. Marinette shook her head, her mouth sealed grimly, and Nino turned back to Adrien, patting his shoulder. “Whatever you need, bro,” he said, and Adrien shot him a grateful smile before turning to the front for their last lesson of the day.</span></span></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Some notes about Lila, in case you're wondering why I wrote her like this: </p><p>In this chapter, I, an autistic author with alexithymia, attempt to empathize with Lila, a compulsive liar who likes to manipulate people. It was kinda hard, but I figured it out, and here's how: in this fic, Lila lies the only way I know how to lie - by convincing herself it's the truth. For me, that's usually the result of me not actually knowing how I feel yet and expressing what I think is a socially appropriate response to a situation. A lot of the time the response in question happens to more or less align with my emotions, so I'm not usually aware I'm lying until I start feeling uncomfortable or exhausted from masking too much. </p><p>For Lila, it's more of an addiction. Lying is the expression of her escapism, which she uses as a coping mechanism to deal with the trauma of never having been allowed to settle long enough to establish lasting relationships with her peers - another thing I can somewhat relate to. Lila never gets sick of masking, because the alternative is confronting reality.</p><p>All this to say, this is my very personal interpretation of Lila. I feel it corresponds to hints we've had in canon, and while she's still the villain, I wanted to make her more complex than just the baddie everyone loves to hate, which I think is a caricature best avoided when writing about characters who are fourteen or fifteen. For me, that role will always be filled by Gabriel, the grown adult and father who had a choice between therapy and akumatizing someone with the power to heal his wife, and chose magical terrorism instead.</p>
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